


The Bats and The Bees

by twowolvesinatrenchcoat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Blood, Angel Wings, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Burning Wings, Canon Divergence, Case Fic, Dean and Cas get a cat, Dean is hangry, Destiel - Freeform, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confession, M/M, Okay so the ending is actually kinda sad, On the car naked and covered in bees, Protective Dean, Sam and Bobby ship Destiel, Sorry Not Sorry, Sort Of, They spoon at some point, Torture, Vampires, crazy cas, hurt cas, scary goth lady, season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:08:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27476326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twowolvesinatrenchcoat/pseuds/twowolvesinatrenchcoat
Summary: Just before the end of season seven, Dean is stressed out about Dick Roman and needs to get busy, so he takes a case in Florida. While on his way, Castiel appears, on his car, naked and covered in bees, and insists on joining Dean. What might’ve been a routine case goes bad fast when Castiel is abducted by a group of starving vampires all too hungry for the blood of an angel who won’t fight back.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 34
Kudos: 65





	1. Naked and Covered in Bees

**Author's Note:**

> The headline Dean finds his case from is a real Florida Man headline that inspired this whole fic

Dean needed to get out of the cabin. Bobby was gone, Dick Roman was who knows where, and they still needed a ‘righteous bone’ to dump fallen blood on. Researching, finding leads, that was Sam’s thing. Dean needed to do something else, something physical. Keep his skills sharp, cut up a monster, burn a corpse, get his hands dirty--Dean needed to do the things he knew he could do.

So he opened up Sam’s laptop, which Sam wouldn’t mind seeing as he was out buying rabbit food and wouldn’t even know, and looked through news articles for anything that sounded like a monster. He clicked on one that looked promising: “Florida Man Says He Danced on Patrol Car in Order to Escape Vampires.” Typical Florida man, doing the strangest things for the strangest reasons. It could just be some drunk watching too much Twilight, but still, a hunt was a hunt, and Dean had driven farther for less.

He rummaged around in his stuff for a pen, then in Sam’s stuff for a notepad. Damn nerd was always writing stuff down.

Dean scribbled out, “Need to do something productive, found a maybe vampire case in Florida, call if you find anything and I’ll come right back. Dean.” He set the note down on Sam’s laptop. 

With communication taken care of, Dean packed his bag, stuffing his jeans and flannel in without folding anything. He packed away his weapons with much more care; clothes were a prison made of fabric designed to shackle hot people who might otherwise conquer the world with their sex appeal, but weapons were lifesaving, important, his life and his creed. Dean could deal with wrinkly shirts, but a jammed gun or broken knife could kill him. 

Dean packed his stuff into the backseat of a car that wasn’t his Baby. In all honesty, the worst thing Dick had done, aside from eating people of course, was screw with Sam’ and Dean’s public appearance to the point where they couldn’t even use the Impala anymore or risk getting arrested on sight. 

Dean sat down in the driver’s seat.

The dusty leather creaked under his weight, old and squeaky, and it groaned as he leaned forward to set the key in the ignition and start the car. 

He pulled away from Rufus’s cabin. Dean didn’t look back until the old building had vanished from his line of sight. He stared straight forward at the road, one hand squeezing the steering wheel and the other jabbing at the radio as he searched for a good station. 

He settled on a classic rock station playing Black Sabbath. Dean turned the song up, and the farther he got from the cabin, he kept turning the music up louder and louder, rolling down the window to blast the song from the speakers. Hours passed on the road and Dean didn’t stop until he needed gas. He turned the music down and pulled into a station populated by food stoners, courtesy of the world’s biggest Dick. At least that meant Dean didn’t have to pay for gas, but he still couldn’t get snacks, which pissed him off to no end.

“Damn you, Dick,” he grumbled as he refilled Not-Baby’s tank. 

The sun had gone down in a haze of starless navy blue when he got back in the car, and he kept the music to an acceptable volume as he drove so he wouldn’t wake anyone, but he still kept his windows rolled down to let in the night air of the Deep South. 

This was Dean’s first mistake. 

Something thumped against the roof of the car. At first, Dean assumed he’d driven under a tree that dropped a branch at the worst possible time, but it sounded much too heavy to be a tree branch--and then something dangled down over his windshield. An arm. Dean swerved off the road and slammed on the breaks. The sudden movement flung off the body on top of his car. As Dean fumbled with his door handle, a few buzzing bees drifted into his window and settled on the inside of the vehicle, soon followed by several more.

He paid the bees no mind as he rushed out of the car, yanking a pistol out of his jeans. He pushed through a cloud of buzzing insects, heart pounding and weapon raised.

The body that had landed on his car shifted and sat up. Dean lowered his gun, face twitching back and forth between confusion and rage. He finally let his features settle on shock as he approached the man sitting on the side of the road. 

“Castiel, what the fuck?” 

Cas waved. “Hello Dean,” he said and pushed himself to his feet. His bare feet. Dean hadn’t realized it in the low lighting, but now that he was closer and Cas had stood up, he realized that Cas wasn’t wearing anything. Anything at all. “I assume you didn’t mean to throw me off your car,” Cas went on, as if there was nothing unusual to discuss.

“Cas…” Dean took a deep breath and forced himself to keep his voice even. The last thing he needed was Cas flying off and running into someone else while he was naked and covered in bees. 

“Yes, Dean?”

“Why the hell are you here, with no damn clothes on, and surrounded by bees?” He sounded more aggressive than he meant to, but when a man pops into existence on your car, naked, and covered in bees, rationality decides to go get cheap drinks at the local crusty bar and dump your ass to deal with everything yourself, so Dean had an excuse for coming off as impolite. 

“I want to experience creation in its most natural state,” he said. 

Dean sighed. He should’ve expected some bull like that. He unlocked his trunk and yanked it open.  
“You can’t just go around naked, Cas,” Dean grumbled as he shoved through the trunk. “It makes people uncomfortable, and people are gonna talk, and you could end up arrested for public nudity. But mostly, it makes people uncomfortable.”

He knew Cas approached him without even needing to turn around. “Personal space.”

Cas did not give Dean his personal space. “Your human discomfort is unnatural.” He held out a finger, letting a bee land on its tip. “You know, back in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve never wore clothes. They found comfort and ease in their natural state, like all the animals did, until sin tainted it for them and they covered their bodies in leaves.”

“Yeah yeah, I’ve heard the story a hundred times in Sunday school. Here, put this on.” He handed Cas a fed suit disguise without looking back at him. “It’s Sam’s so I doubt it’ll fit you well, but I’m on a hunt and I’m probably gonna need mine.”

Castiel nodded. He dressed in the fed suit, brushing off the occasional bee so it wouldn’t end up trapped under the fabric.

“Am I suitable now?” The pants hung too low down, pooling over Cas’s bare feet, and the sleeves fared no better, obscuring his whole hand down to the fingertips. The tie dangled untied around his neck. But at least he was dressed, and Dean could look at him now without feeling his face heat up.

“Pun intended?” Dean cracked a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. 

“What?”

The smile fell. “Never mind. I’m on my way to Florida, so why don’t you head back to the cabin? I’m sure Sam is back from his supply run by now.”

“Why are you going to Florida?” Cas shuffled closer once more, much too close, standing barely six inches away from Dean. “Did you find anything on the bone weapon to kill the leviathans?”

He shook his head. “No, Sam’s on that. I’m on a hunt, and I have to go if I’m gonna make it down to Asstown, USA by morning.” 

Cas plucked a bee from Dean’s hair and bent down to set it on a white flower. “It’s been a while since I’ve come on a hunt with you. I think I’ll be joining you.” Without giving Dean a chance to protest, he flashed into the passenger seat of the car.

“Dammit Cas,” Dean mumbled. He got into the driver’s seat. This wasn’t going to go well, he could tell that much. Cas couldn’t even handle an argument without running away and breaking the literal word of God, so how was he supposed to last on a hunt? Especially now that he’d sworn off all aggressive activity, and combat was pretty damn aggressive.

“Go home,” Dean urged. “I’m hunting a potential vampire nest. If this lead means anything, there’ll be a whole lotta fighting and killing, and you don’t want that, right?”

Cas busied himself by picking up bees by their fuzzy asses, oblivious to their stingers--though none of them seemed interested in stinging him--and piling them all into his cupped hand. 

“Cas.”

“What?” Cas turned to face him and the untied tie slid off his shoulders and folded in on itself across the center console. 

“Focus, dammit.” he snapped in the angel’s face to get his attention. “You cannot come hunting with me. You won’t fight, you can’t stay focused on any one simple task, and you run off to who the hell knows every five minutes. You’re gonna get yourself killed, or something is gonna upset you and you’ll vanish right at the time when we need you most.”

“You need me?” Cas let each bee out of the car, guiding them to the window one at a time, letting the insects lift into the air and buzz off. “What for?”

“Well--” Dean cut himself off as he searched for something to say. They already had fallen angel blood and, in his current condition, Cas couldn’t fight leviathans or anything else at all. As shown by his tender care of the bees clinging to his hands, Cas wouldn’t hurt a fly, not in this state, at least. What a jarring difference it was, to see Castiel now compared to not too long ago when he’d consumed the leviathan souls from Purgatory and used their power to wipe out thousands of his own kind. 

Regardless of what happened or Cas’s current condition, Dean just couldn’t picture this all going down without him. 

Cas was always there with them, ever since he’d fought through armies of demons in Hell to rescue Dean’s damaged, twisted, and violent soul and carry it back into his rotting body. The angel Hester had said the moment Cas touched Dean, he was done for, but to Dean, that was the moment everything set into motion for him and Sam to stop the apocalypse. 

“We just need you there,” Dean fumbled. “It wouldn’t feel right without you.” Desperate for a way to make himself sound kinder, Dean added, “We can’t risk anything happening to you on a hunt when there are much bigger things going on. You’re important to us.”

“Oh don’t worry.” Cas nudged the last of the bees off his hand and watched them as they buzzed in a droning cloud over the white flowers speckling the glass. “I’ll be fine.”

Dean struck a palm against the steering wheel. “Don’t you get it, you son of a bitch,” he snapped, turning to glare with furrowed brows. “You’re helpless, okay? You’re completely helpless with your eggs scrambled like this. If you come on a hunt with me, you’re just dead weight, and I’m gonna have to save your sorry ass when you piss off the wrong squirrel and you can’t deal with it yourself because you ‘don’t like confrontation.’ So get out of the car and go back to the cabin.”

Castiel blinked. “Don’t get angry Dean. I only want to help…” 

When Cas looked at him, with widened eyes and tilted brows, Dean couldn’t help but think of Sam’s signature puppy-dog-face. 

Back when they were kids, Sam had said the same thing. He wanted to help, get involved, save people. He wanted to feel useful instead of just sitting in some shitty motel all day, wondering if his father and brother would survive. Dean had been in the same situation before John started letting him go on hunts. 

Dean knew exactly what it was like to feel useless. Hell, the whole reason he’d been on the road for hours was to smother that same feeling while Sam did the heavy lifting with research. 

“Fine,” said Dean. “You can come, but the second we see trouble, I tell you to go back to Sam and you do it, no questions asked.”

“Okay.” Cas made no further argument. He clicked on his seatbelt. 

Dean restarted the car, rolled up the windows to keep any adventurous bees from flying back inside the vehicle, and stepped on the gas, driving down an infinite stretch of flat, empty road going south.


	2. Honey

“Dean are you, how do they say,” Cas made air quotes, “hangry?”

“What?”

Dean pulled the car into the parking lot of a mostly empty motel. Mostly empty was good, even if it did look a little sketchy, but Dean had stayed in worse places. 

“You know, so hungry that it’s upsetting you and making you angry.”

“I know what ‘hangry’ means. I meant, who do you ask?” Was it really that obvious? Sure, Dean hadn’t eaten any good food lately thanks to Dick, but had hunger really affected him to the point where Cas could pick up on it?

“I know how much you love food. This must be very hard for you, not being able to eat.” Cas’s eyes brightened, and Dean recognized that as his ‘I have an idea and I have no regard for how it might impact my own safety’ face. “I should make you some food. I can go to small farms in other countries for all the ingredients. This will only take a bit.”

Before Cas flashed out, Dean said, “Just be careful.”

He parked the car and walked into the motel to get a room. He approached the woman at the front desk, but she didn’t look up from her milkshake, sipping it down till she sucked it dry. 

“I need a room.”

“Okay.” The woman handed him a key. Didn’t even name a price, never mind try to collect payment.

“Uh, thanks.” 

Dean returned to his car to collect his bag. He scribbled his room number on the back on an old receipt and stuck it on the passenger’s seat so Cas would know where to look when he came back. He walked up the stairs, unlocked the room, and dumped his stuff inside. He’d been driving all night, and he figured he had some time before Cas got back, so he kicked off his boots, fell into the nearest bed, and blacked out.

He didn’t have to open his eyes to notice, a few hours after he’d fallen asleep, the feeling of something watching him, something much too close.

Dean slept with a knife under his pillow, as hunters do. He used to sleep with a gun instead, but a few too many instances where he’d fired bullets into motel walls forced him to switch to blades. Now that he had an angel blade, he felt much more secure about it.

Dean’s only issue with this mentality were the few occasions he’d accidentally taken a swing at someone he cared about, usually Sam shaking him awake from a nightmare.

This was Dean’s second mistake. Maybe third, if the whole “letting Cas come with him on a hunt when he couldn’t do much more than chase after bees” thing could be classified as a mistake. 

Before even opening his eyes, Dean had his hand curled around cold, holy metal. He swung the blade out at who or whatever had come into his room, unannounced, and stalked up to his bed to watch him sleep. Too late, he remembered that Cas had left earlier and was supposed to come back after his mission for food.

Castiel’s angel-wing reflexes spared him any damage. He flashed to the other side of the room in a flutter of feathers, still holding onto the bundle of items in his arms. 

Dean dropped the knife. It thudded on the dull blue carpet. 

“Shit, Cas, you scared me,” Dean said, rubbing his eyes. Although looking at Cas in the pale light filtering through the blinds, backed against the wall and stare locked on the knife… clearly Dean wasn’t the only one who’d been scared. 

Dean swung his legs over the side of the bed and bent to pick up the knife. “Ah… sorry. If I’d known it was you I wouldn’t have done that.” 

“It’s okay. I should have expected you to have a violent reaction to someone standing over you.” He held out the cluster of things piled in his arms. “I brought you some breakfast.” A table with two chairs huddled against the wall, and Cas set down a plate piled with bacon, french toast, hashbrowns, and an omelette. “I was very careful with the ingredients, so it will cause you no harm. I also made you some coffee--” he set down a steaming mug-- “and a pie.”

Dean’s feet hit the floor before he even realized he’d stood up. “Should’ve led with the pie,” he said and sat on a rickety wooden chair that miraculously held his weight.

“And to apologize for flustering you last night with my unclothed appearance, here are some magazines filled with images of people who are only mostly unclothed.” Cas set down several copies of Dean’s favorite magazine, Busty Asian Beauties.

Dean cut into his food with plastic utensils stolen from various fast food joints. He hadn’t eaten anything worthy of clogging his arteries in so long that he went silent for a few minutes while he piled up chunks of syrupy french toast in his mouth, barely remembering to chew, and crunched bacon strips between his teeth.

“Is this satisfactory?”

“Hell yeah it is,” Dean mumbled around a mouthful of egg. “Come sit down.”

The angel shifted something tucked into his oversized pants before he took a seat across from Dean.

“What’s in your pocket?”

Cas didn’t answer. He glanced down and folded his hands in his lap, but he didn’t fly off or get defensive, so Dean considered that some sort of victory.

“I’m not gonna get mad, okay? What’s in your pocket?”

“She’s sleeping, I’d rather not wake her up.” He reached into his pocket. “She likes it in there. It’s warm.”

“She?”

“Tell me, Dean, has Team Free Will felt short one species lately? I mean, there’s you and Sam, the humans, me, the angel, Bobby, the ghost, and Meg, the demon, but we should have a mascot. An animal companion.” 

Dean sipped his coffee while holding direct eye contact with Castiel. It was good coffee, but that didn’t surprise him since the rest of the food had been fantastic. Dean made a mental note to ask Cas to start doing the cooking instead of Sam, who kept insisting Dean needed to get things like “vitamins” and “vegetables” into his diet. 

Instead of pressuring Cas, which didn’t work out so well the last few times he’d tried it, Dean said nothing, giving Cas the chance to fill the silence himself.

“She was abandoned by her mother, I believe. I found her while collecting honey from a beehive to make the sugar in your french toast. And she’s very tiny and frail, so I took her back with me. The wilderness is no place for a kitten.”

A kitten. Of course Cas would adopt a kitten in the middle of the hunt predating the potential end of the human race. 

“I named her Honey.” 

“Cas…” What was Dean supposed to say to this? Obviously getting a kitten was a bad idea, they were hunters who lived dangerous lives and never settled down. A pet was just a weakness, an obligation, a distraction. And yet, Dean wasn’t sure he could handle the look of disappointment he pictured on Cas’s face when he told him this. Maybe an animal to take care of what exactly what Cas needed to get him out of this mindset he was stuck in. 

Dean exhaled. “If you’re going to keep a pet, you should make sure you know how to take care of one.” Dean got up and pulled his laptop out of his bag, which had gone mostly unused once Dean got Sam back. “Here, why don’t you look up stuff about kitten care while I find a town map or something.”

“Yes, I’ll--” A faint squeak cut him off. Cas stuck a hand into his pocket and pulled out a pale yellow kitten about the size of a hummingbird. “Honey is awake.”

Dean hated to admit to himself how cute she was. 

The kitten squeaked and pawed at the air with miniscule claws. She shifted in Cas’s hand and bit down on his thumb, not even breaking skin. 

“I believe she is hungry. Due to her age, I will have to feed her a milk supplement.” Cas typed something into Dean’s laptop. “I should be able to pick some up locally, since the leviathans are only targeting human food. Please watch her.”

Cas vanished with a flap of wings, leaving Dean alone with a tiny, mewling, helpless animal to take care of.

Well, if he’d gotten Sam to adulthood, how hard could a cat be?

Dean turned his laptop to face him and started to research. He read through the article about the man trying to escape from vampires, which had been reported as a case of some redneck being drunk in public. But as he looked deeper, he found that there might, in fact, be something to this man’s claim.

Multiple locals had died lately, courtesy of Dick, but two of them stuck out to him. In their death reports, they had been wounded on the neck and drained of some, but not all, of their blood. Usually a vamp would suck a victim dry, so maybe there was something wrong with these men’s blood? Vampires weren’t exactly picky eaters, but maybe the victims had AIDS or anemia or something. The most damning detail of all though, was that shortly after both of the victims had died, two other locals had vanished, including a local blood bank nurse. 

Dean went in to look up a town map, find some local sheriff or coroner to talk to, but a tugging on his sleeve pulled his focus away from the screen.

Dean glanced down at Honey, gnawing on his jacket. She really must’ve been hungry if leather seemed like a good option for food. Dean sighed and reached for his mostly empty plate of breakfast. He scooped up some bacon grease with a finger and let the cat lick it off his skin with a sandpaper tongue.

Why was he even doing this? Bonding with an animal?

He was a hunter, a killer, a dangerous man who’d done awful, unspeakable things. Committed murder, tortured souls, defiled graves… snapped at his friend who only wanted to help. Dean wasn’t a good man. 

And yet, this pathetic scrap of fur didn’t care. She purred and nudged her face against Dean’s hand, purring.

On an impulse Dean didn’t know he had, he took his phone out of his pocket and took a picture, then texted it to Sam with the message: “Cas showed up. He wants to hunt, but apparently he also wants a cat.”

Sam replied in seconds. “You’re letting him hunt?”

Dean had to type with one hand or risk pulling his hand away from the kitten. “I’m letting him tag along. I’ll be doing the hunting myself.”

“Good. Cute cat.”

“Yeah, Cas found her and decided that we didn’t have enough species diversity or whatever. He named her Honey.”

“He sure likes bees, doesn’t he?”

Dean considered telling him about the events of last night, then decided it was a story better told in person. He wasn’t even sure how to explain over text that Cas had shown up, on his car, naked and covered in bees. So instead he replied with, “You have no idea.”

As if on cue, Cas appeared beside Dean.

“Did you know that infant felines are incapable of defecating by themselves? They require assistance through a process of rubbing their genitals, usually done by the mother.”

Dean glanced down at the kitten. “That can be your job”

What was it with Cas and cat genitalia? 

“I will care for this kitten in every way so you won’t have to be inconvenienced.” He pulled one of several bottles from a bag slung over his arm. The kitten must’ve smelled the contents, because she scrambled towards Cas, tiny paws sliding on the table. He caught her before she got too close to the edge and lifted her up to feed her. 

Dean tried not to watch the kitten gulp down her meal. He had work to do, dammit, he couldn’t afford to be distracted. Dean locked his focus on his laptop screen to continue his research.

“I’m gonna head to the coroner’s office to take a look at the bodies. Will you be okay waiting here alone?” 

“Can’t I come with you?”

Dean looked over Cas. He was still wearing Sam’s suit, which now had a bit of mud splattered on it from his excursion to various farms across the world. He hadn’t even bothered to put shoes on.

“No offense, you’re not up to FBI standards.”

Cas looked at the window. “It’s a lovely day out. When Honey is ready for her nap I’ll walk around town and see if I notice anything that could be of assistance to you.”

“Hey, peek into the sheriff’s department and let me know if anyone in there is sober.”

Investigations wouldn’t be very easy if everyone in town was stoned, but maybe he’d get lucky. The woman running the motel desk had clearly been affected by whatever drugs SucroCorp had pumped into the food supply, but there had to be at least one person in town who ate like Sam.

Dean typed the coroner’s office address into his phone and left the room to get his Fed suit from the car. He brought it back up and changed in the bathroom, then rummaged through his stuff for his fake badge and gun. He remembered the angel blade last minute.

“Goodbye Dean,” Cas called as he made for the door. “Try not to step on any flowers, the honeybees need them to make food.”

“You got it, Cas,” he said and shut the door. 

Dean walked down stairs, got into the car, and drove off to go look at some half-drank bodies in the freezer.


	3. Hive Mind

Once Honey finished her breakfast, Cas took a moment to assemble a bed for her. Since Cas didn’t need sleep, he used the room’s second bed. He fluffed out the pillow and pulled up the blanket. Cas nudged an indent in the middle, creating a sort of nest. Honey was too small to get up and wander, so she’d be fine on her own for a bit.

As much as Cas would rather take the kitten with him, he knew that she was safest in a locked room. 

Before he left, Cas followed a video tutorial he found on the internet on how to help kittens relieve themselves. For the sake of cleanliness, he held Honey over the bathroom counter and rubbed her down with a damp cloth.

He washed it once she was done, then brought Honey to her bed. Bed on top of a bed. Bed-ception. 

With his cat comfortably sleeping, Cas took this time to go out and see “Asstown, USA,” as Dean had called it. Dean must not have liked Florida very much, because on the drive to the motel, he referred to the state as “Disneyland but in Hell” and “America’s penis.”

Cas didn’t bother with a room key since he could just teleport into the room with his wings. He left Honey to rest, shut the door, and went downstairs to go on his walk of the town. Sam’s long pants, pooling at the bottoms of Cas’s feet, got him down a flight of stairs faster than expected when Cas tripped over his own feet and tumbled down the stairs. 

He opened his eyes to find himself face to face with a cricket. “Hello. What’s your name?” The cricket chirped. “What a lovely name, mister ‘Scheeeeirp.’ I’m Castiel.”

The cricket chirped again. He hopped away, heading down the stairs. Cas got up and followed him, but he vanished into the grass. Mr. Scheeeeirp clearly had other business to attend to, so Castiel left him alone. Before he continued his walk, he rolled up his--well, Sam’s--pants and cuffed them around his ankles to prevent further falling. Being an angel, falling down the stairs had little effect on him, but he’d still rather avoid it.

The hot, humid air buzzed as Cas passed through it.

With the humans gone quiet, minds dulled and relaxed by the very food they consumed, nature allowed itself to creep out from humanity’s shadow. Lawns went uncut, spiders spread their webs over car windows and door frames, and birds hopped along the street with a leisurely pace, unbothered by traffic now that there were hardly any cars on the road.

One particular bird caught Cas’s eye: a pigeon, hopping on one foot. Something dark and sticky coated its scaly orange toes, leaking from a line of puncture wounds and reeking of infection. It must’ve been bitten by something, but Cas could heal it.

Cas walked after the bird, but when it saw him, it lifted off the street with a beat of fluttering wings, silver and green and white feathers glinting an iridescent sheen.

It bobbed in the air as if dizzy, but it managed to dart from his outstretched hand and vanish into a gap between ivy-bound brick walls. One wall connected to an office supply storefront with a “SALE” sign hung in the window. The other wall had a door leading into a salon. Since they were so close, such places could be partnered together in holy matrimony. Scissors were for perms and pencils were for curlers.

Cas stepped over a tall clump of grass to pass into the alley, careful to maneuver around the daisies sprouted from the concrete. Bees needed to eat, after all.

The pigeon slowed and lowered to the ground, still only letting one leg take its weight. Castiel bent down beside it and picked it up. The bird shook in his hands, but from exhaustion rather than fear. Like the bees and the kitten, the pigeon felt a sense of calm and safety in the presence of an angel.

It made no protest as he held a finger against the wounds speckling its foot. Pale gold light shone like a Christmas light from Cas’s touch, and the blood faded away, puncture wounds closing behind. Scales regrew, leaving no evidence of the injury, not even a scar.

“Boop,” said the angel as he tapped a finger on the pigeon’s face.

He released the bird, with energy and strength now restored, to fly off and return to the daily activities of pigeons. 

“Hey, hippie,” a voice growled from behind him. 

Cas turned around and waved. “Oh, hello. It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?” He looked the man over. “I like your shoes. Are you perchance a florist?”

The man blinked. He blocked off the alley with his heavy silhouette, beefy arms, and shoulders that could rival Sam’s. Most of his exposed skin had been inked over, tattoos depicting flames, skulls, and a scantily-clad woman on his bicep. The man’s head hair had been shaved off, but he let hair grow elsewhere, leaving a beard, thick eyebrows, and bushy underarms. 

In a huge, meaty fist, he clutched a knife. 

“What the hell are you on, dude?” the towering man chuckled. “You and everyone in this town, stoned off their asses. Well, at least that means you won’t put up a fight. Gimme your wallet, and your phone.”

Cas blinked. “If you need to contact someone, you can borrow a phone. I’m sure it wouldn’t come to knifing if you just ask nicely.” The man squinted at Cas, but said nothing. “In this case though, I’m afraid I have no phone for you to borrow, or wallet for you to take. I left them before I came out.”

The man swore under his breath. “Well if you won’t give me money, I’m gonna have to stick you.” He took a step forward. “You could identify me in a lineup. And hey, don’t you go trying to fight. I’m like, twice your weight. Make this easy on yourself.”

“Oh, I don’t fight,” Cas said.

He let the man march up to him, muddy running shoes kicking up gray sand and loose gravel. He smirked down at Cas, then shoved the knife deep in his gut.

It stung, of course, but he wouldn’t be harmed by it, since it was only ordinary steel, not an angel blade. Castiel healed himself, the wound closing up as muscle, tendon, and flesh knitted back together and pushed the knife out to clatter on the ground, but there was nothing to be done for Sam’s torn shirt. 

The man gasped, eyes blown wide yet still dwarfed by his enormous eyebrows. “The fuck? What are you?”

“What’s your name?”

“W-what?” the man practically screamed, his voice rising several octaves. 

“Your name.”

“It, ah, it’s Michael, okay? So just leave me alone.” He tried to scramble away, but one of his laces was untied and he stepped on it, knocking his own feet from under him to send himself sprawling into the dirt. 

Cas tapped a finger to his chin. “I have a brother named Michael. I do hope you don’t end up like him. He’s in Hell.”

“Hell…” Michael glanced from Cas to his knife, then back to Cas. 

Without another word, he bolted.

Cas waved as he sprinted down the street. “What a nice man,” Cas said to himself. “Just needed a push in the right direction.”

Castiel continued his walk, looking out for anything that might assist Dean on his hunt. He peeked into the window of the sheriff’s office, but saw no one inside. He didn’t see a squad car though, so maybe the sheriff would be back later. He kept walking. Cas stepped off the sidewalk and into the grass, angling his feet around the flowers, but still letting himself feel the grass and dirt beneath him.

After a while of walking, he paused beneath a tree with hanging scraps of moss dangling from the branches. The tree’s leaves veiled the sun and shaded the grass, cooling the ground with a dapple of blue shadows and yellow sunspots freckling the earth.

A lone bee buzzed along the roots, hopping from flower to flower. Cas watched her move--yes, her, as Cas kept trying to explain to Dean. The majority of insects living in a hive were female, with males serving only the purpose of breeding. And bees were no exception. The honeybee flitted through the air, then made her way towards another tree.

Cas followed the bee at a few feet of distance. When he looked down at the grass, he found a few more bees bumbling underfoot.

The bees grouped up together and flew off. Cas walked after them, winding through gray-green oaks and long grass. A hanging tendril of moss brushed over his hair, almost like fingers, but lacking the human warmth such a touch needed.

He wandered off the main road, following the bees. The farther he walked, the more he noticed a faint buzzing, growing steadily louder.

More bees sprung up from the grass, weaving fuzzy bodies around flower stems and cream petals. He felt the vibrations of the hive’s communication, the thrum of their buzzing and their bodies humming in a low, melodious tune as they dusted yellow pollen from their black legs. The bees rose in puffs of striped, winged clouds to a hive nestled against treebark. 

Cas stood there and listened to them until a high pitched wailing sound cut like a dagger through the air.

He looked up to find that he’d approached a dirt backroad, leading through the trees. Part of the area had been fenced off, and he might’ve wandered right over to the path if he hadn’t heard a siren. So that’s where the sheriff had driven off to.

A stick of an old man wearing a hat with a brim wider than he was stepped out of the police car. “You can’t come this way,” he called to Cas. “This is private property.”

“Hello, Sheriff,” Cas greeted. “Are you sober?”

He snorted and scrunched up his wrinkly face. “I’m on duty, boy, of course I’m--”

“Are you aware that worker bees will remove the feces of the queen from the hive by carrying it out with their tongues?”

The sheriff blinked. “And he asks if I’m sober,” he mumbled. “Why don’t you come on over here.” He waved Cas over, who, with a glance back at the hive, allowed himself to trudge out from under the trees. “We’ve had some issues with people in town getting drunk in public and causing all sorts of problems, so I have to check everyone over, routine procedure.”

“I assure you, I have not consumed alcohol since I realized that my father had no intentions of coming down from Heaven to help me stop the apocalypse.”

“Sure… right.” When Cas came close enough, he fanned the air to his nose. “Well, you don’t smell like alcohol, but I still have to run some tests. Wait here, I need to get something. Why don’t you… ah, watch those bees you’re so fond of.”

Castiel nodded and swiveled to look back at the bees. They drifted in and out of the hive, carrying pollen dust and glossy honey drips. Cas barely noticed the sounds of the sheriff opening and closing a trunk, then walking back over as he focused on the buzzing and rustling of oak leaves shuddering as bees nudged around them. 

Cas had practically forgotten about the sheriff until the man’s hand reached around his face and cupped over his mouth.

Before Cas could react, the sheriff ripped open the back of Cas’s jacket and shirt with one hand, exposing bare skin. The air against his back felt oddly cold in the Florida heat, sending a shiver creeping through his spine before the icy chill melted away, replaced by a searing heat, blazing and blistering, burning into his back. Cas’s vision flashed black, white, and red. He flapped his wings to launch himself away, run back to the motel room where his kitten--and hopefully Dean--awaited, but his wings hung limp, imprisoned within him, not even casting a shadow. 

He couldn’t run. He couldn’t fight. So he screamed, voice muffled by the hand crushed against his mouth with bruising force. 

No one would be able to hear him, but he screamed anyways, wishing, not for the first time, that an angel could pray to a human. He needed to link his mind to Dean, warn him that there was something out here that meant them harm. 

“Dean,” Castiel wailed, sobbed, pleaded.

His grace didn’t respond as he called upon it to heal the damage to his back, or at least dampen the piercing agony shooting through him, beating in time with his pounding heart.

“Dean,” he tried again. “Dean!”

“Quiet,” the sheriff snarled in his ear. He pressed on Cas’s back with what felt like a hot poker, ablaze in white-hot light, sending a raw bolt of pain through him. Cas’s legs gave out under him and he slumped forward, but the man burning him didn’t let him drop; he held Cas in place with an iron grip.

As the pain grew too much to bear, Cas’s vision liquified and blackened. He swayed and collapsed, finally allowed to drop to the grass.

With his last grasp on consciousness, Cas craned his head to look up at the sheriff, chuckling down at Cas with a pointed smile--pointed with long, dagger-sharp teeth. Dean had said this might be a vampire case, and it turned out he was right. 

Cas’s eyes rolled back in his head, but before they closed, they locked on the long rod in the vampire’s grip. The end had been heated till it glowed yellow, heat waves radiating off of it in fluid, wavering shapes. But Cas hadn’t just been burned, he realized with a flash of terror. He’d been branded.

No wonder he hadn’t been able to force his wings to move, or call upon his grace to heal himself and smother the flaring pain. At the top of the branding rod, the metal curved into an all-to-familiar shape.

Angel warding, shaped iron heated in holy fire, now embedded in a pulsating red mark on his back.

“That’s right, angel,” the vampire laughed. “You ain’t going anywhere.”

“Dean,” Cas groaned, voice too weak to rise above the volume of the ever-buzzing bees.


	4. Sucrose Smile

Dean needed to finish up as quickly as possible so he could get back to Cas. 

Leaving him alone for this long didn’t sit right with him, but Dean needed to finish this hunt. People were dead, so Cas could wait. After all, how much trouble could a literal freaking angel get into just by going on a walk?

He opened the door to the coroner’s office. A bell jangled above him, alerting a woman shuffling folders. By some miracle, she wasn’t stoned. 

“You must be the coroner.”

The woman nodded, the motion shaking a long black curl loose to drape over redwood eyes lined in heavy makeup. Beneath her lab coat and gloves, she wore ripped black shorts, fishnet leggings, and a tight black tank top with, ironically, a cartoon dracula flashing a fanged grin. Not exactly “lab attire,” but he didn’t see anyone else in the office, so she must run the place by herself, which would leave her free to dress as gothically as she pleased. 

“I’m Poppy.” She looked him over. “You FBI?”

Dean nodded and pulled Fake Badge Number Four bearing the name ‘Ian Anderson’ from his pocket. “I’m here to take a look at two bodies, the ones partly drained of blood.”

Poppy set down her folders in a neat stack on the edge of her desk. “Finally, someone bothers to look at them. I don’t think they’re locals, so we’ve had a bit of trouble identifying them. And get this, they were carrying fake IDs and enough weapons to make a soldier jealous.” Dean snapped his eyes back to her. Sounded like hunters. “ Come take a look.”

As Dean followed Poppy to her body freezer, he decided to figure out just how she managed to avoid getting drugged off her ass. “You seem healthier than anyone else in town,” he said, doing his best to sound inconspicuous. “Everyone else I’ve seen looks pretty out of it.”

“Oh, yeah,” she laughed, “I think it’s because of my diet. I only eat organic foods that I harvest myself.”

And of course, he’d found another Sam. 

“You got a vegetable garden or something?”

“Something like that.”

When they arrived at the room where they kept the bodies, she pulled a key from her coat pocket and unlocked it, holding the door to allow him in. 

Even though he’d been in much, much colder places, the transition from the hallway to the freezer shocked him enough to make him shiver. He better not be getting used to the heat, he didn’t plan on staying in Florida any longer than necessary.

The state was overheated, overcrowded, and overrated, with too many mosquitos and tourist traps. Maybe he’d give it a chance, if he had gotten a case in a beach town full of hot people in swimsuits, but the vampires clearly preferred the blood found in the redneck part of Florida, full of wannabe cowboys who couldn’t handle Texas.

“Here’s the body we found first,” Poppy said. She pulled out a long rack and lifted a white sheet from the corpse to reveal a man beneath. 

The puncture wounds on his neck definitely matched the size and shape of vamp bites.

“And the other one?”

Poppy revealed the second body, just as bruised and waxy as the first, with glazed, empty eyes. Deep punctures dug into his neck, nearly the same as the first. Dean would, without any doubt, call these vampire kills, other than the fact that most of their blood remained in their bodies, blackened by the process of decay. There had to be something different about this blood if not even a vampire would suck it dry.

“Ma’am, I’d like to take some samples of the bodies for the forensics team to take a look at. Saliva, blood, that sort of thing.” He didn’t have forensics, but maybe Cas could sense anything wrong with them.

“Sure,” Poppy shrugged. “They’re all yours.”

As Dean collected the samples, he kept up a polite conversation to distract her from his hunter’s expectation of the corpses. 

“Lotta weird things going on in this town, huh?”

“Well, it is Florida,” Poppy said as she picked up a clipboard from a shelf and began to scribble out notes with a red fountain pen. “You’ve seen all of those ‘Florida man’ articles, right? I swear, the murders may all live in Chicago, and the stoners may all live in LA, but the crazies all live in Florida.”

“I read an article recently.” This was probably the best opening he was gonna get, so he had to take his chance and bring up the case. “It was from this town, actually.” Dean looked down at one of the dead hunters, peering into the dark bite marks on his throat. “Some guy drunk off his ass, dancing on top of a police car. Said something about trying to escape vampires… You know anything about that?”

When he looked up, Poppy stood right by him. Dean hadn’t even heard her come over. For someone with chains clinking on her boots, Poppy walked near silently. She stood so close Dean could smell a fruity, sugary scent from her blackberry lipgloss, mouth curved in a grin.

“Didn’t you hear?” Poppy tilted her head slightly, in a quizzical way that reminded him of Cas. “After that article went out, he left town.”

“Huh… Guess once he sobered up he was a bit too embarrassed to stay behind.”

How convenient, his most important witness had vanished. If Dean were a normal man, he’d have assumed that his excuse for the man leaving was true, but Dean wasn’t a normal man. Had the witness been murdered? Threatened? Paid off? Until he talked to the sheriff, the only one who seemed to know anything useful was the coroner. 

“Should I assume the local sheriff would have the things found on the men’s bodies? The weapons, IDs, that sort of thing.”

“Yep. You need an address?”

“That would be great, thanks.”

Poppy wrote out the address in her red pen, tore it off the bottom of the paper, and handed it to Dean. 

“I might come back if I need any more information from the bodies.”

“You got it.” Poppy didn’t follow him out, instead staying behind to examine the bodies. She pulled out her phone and took a photo of her notes, and that was the last Dean saw of her before he left.

He sent a text to Sam with the names of the hunters. “They’re dead hunters,” he typed out. “Get the word out in case someone wants to claim the bodies.”

He typed the address to the sheriff’s office into his phone, but Dean wasn’t ready to head out just yet. He still had the pie Cas made him, which he’d been saving for lunch. As much as he wanted to devour it the moment he saw it, Dean knew he should make his food last as long as possible. He couldn’t bug Cas every damn hour for food.

Plus, he had to go back to the motel anyway. Cas shouldn’t be alone for too long, especially in a town infested by vampires. 

Dean got in his car and drove back to the motel. When he arrived, Milkshake Lady had yet another milkshake, with a cherry this time. She walked out from the front desk, eyes locked on her phone, and vanished. 

The door was still locked. That made sense, though, since Cas had his wings and didn’t need to concern himself with locked doors. 

He fished the room key out of his pocket and let himself in, only to find the room empty. Well, mostly empty. The second bed happened to be occupied by a kitten, stirring at the sound of the open door. Honey yawned and sneezed, pink nose twitching. Cas’s cat was still here, but where was Cas?

Dean left a few hours ago, and Cas was only on a walk. He should be back by now.

Dean pulled out his phone to call him. Cas didn’t answer, so Dean left him a voicemail. “Hey,” he said into the phone, “your cat is awake. You coming back soon?”

Dean paced around the room. This down barely spanned a mile, where could Cas have possibly gone? And to make things worse, he couldn’t even answer his phone. Did Cas bring his phone? Now that Dean thought about it, it was probably still in the pocket of his trench coat, wherever that was.

“Dammit Cas,” Dean grumbled, smacking his hand against the table. As much as he wanted to sit down and enjoy his pie before continuing his hunt, the pie--and the vampires--weren’t as important as finding Castiel. 

Unless somehow the vampires were connected to this disappearance? But what would vampires want with an angel?

Since Cas couldn’t answer him, Dean called Sam instead, swearing under his breath while he waited for his brother to pick up. The phone rang a few times before Sammy finally answered. 

“Hey, Dean. Just saw your text about the hunters, I was about to--”

“Yeah never mind the hunters,” Dean interrupted. “Has Cas been by the cabin at all? I told him to go to you if anything bad happened.”

Sam didn’t answer for a few seconds. “Did something bad happen?”

“Not to me, but I can’t find Cas.” Dean paced back and forth across the room while he spoke. “He’s been gone for a few hours and he doesn’t have his phone on him. Since he decided to go and get a freaking cat, I’d expect him to wanna be around more often, He shouldn’t have been gone this long.”

“Well I haven’t seen or heard anything from him,” Sam said, tone much calmer than Dean’s. “I can call Meg, she might know where he is.”

“Yeah, hopefully. Tell her to look for his coat, he wasn’t wearing it when he came down here.” Dean neglected to mention that Cas hadn’t been wearing anything at all, unless a swarm of bees counted.

“Will do. And Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“If he can’t pick up the phone, pray to him. He’s still an angel.”

Right. Why didn’t Dean think to do that? He supposed it was pretty obvious, now that Sam said it out loud. 

“Thanks. Call me if you find anything.” 

When they hung up, Dean tucked his phone in his pocket and sat down on the bed where Honey stretched out and clambered out of her makeshift pillow nest. She padded over to him, pausing to stretch, tiny claws digging into the blankets and her tail sticking straight up in the air. The kitten reached a paw up and batted Dean’s knee. 

He sighed and lifted her into his lap, letting her swipe her claws against his jacket. She’d end up getting yellow hairs all over him, but at the moment, he didn’t really care.

Cas was in danger, he shouldn’t be thinking about cat hair.

“Castiel,” Dean called to the empty air. “I came back to the motel room and I didn’t see you. I know, you’re an angel and there’s not much that can get the upper hand on you, but it’s been a few hours. Your kitten is awake, and there’s a nest of vampires out there, so if you can hear me, get your feathered ass back here.”

Dean shouldn’t have let Cas come with him. Sure, he’d been rude earlier, but he hadn’t been wrong. 

“Cas,” he called again, voice rising to a shout. “Look, man, I hate to admit it, but I’m worried about you. You let Hester beat on you; you won’t fight anyone even to defend yourself. This is not a safe place for you, and you need to come back.”

As an afterthought, he added, “If not to me, go back to Sam... or, ugh, Meg.”

Maybe he was being too hard on Meg, who’d stayed by Castiel’s side when Dean hadn’t, but after she possessed his brother, how could he trust her with his angel?

“Don’t be stubborn, Cas,” Dean grumbled. “Just come back so I know you’re safe.”

Dean waited in the motel room for a while longer, but he never heard the flutter of Castiel’s wings.


	5. Sting

Cas woke up to fire and ice warring across him, the tongues of flames and icicle teeth boring into his skin. He shivered and groaned, curling up tighter. Without opening his eyes, Cas knew he was laying on a hard floor with metal beams spanned out under him. He tried to keep his eyes closed, but the pain in his back grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him till his blue eyes snapped open. 

With barely a glance at his surroundings, he knew he couldn’t stay here.

Cas bolted, flapping his wings to teleport himself to Dean’s side--until something cold and hard squeezed around his throat with a clang, yanking him back to fall flat on the ground.

He expected his back to scrape up along the concrete and metal beams surrounding him, above, below, on all sides. He’d been locked in a cage, Castiel realized as he fell. Bolted into the ground and ceiling, steel bars enclosing him. 

Instead of his back hitting the ground, something else did. And the impact hurt, sending shockwaves of agony through his spine, but something soft and sturdy folded under him to catch the brunt of the fall. Still lying on his back, Cas turned to stare at the limbs he’d kept hidden for so long. When was the last time he’d let any of his true form show through?

A pair of wings blossomed from his back, each one easily the size of a person. Normally the sheer size of his wings acted as a comfort, but in that cage, Cas couldn’t help but wish they were gone, tucked away inside his vessel. They shouldn’t even be visible, other than the rare instance where they cast a shadow, yet here they were, inky black feathers ruffled from his struggle. Somehow, there was someone who knew how to manipulate not just his vessel, but his true body, and Cas would much prefer not to find out why.

He had to get out of this cage, with its freezing bars and harsh confinements, but even if he could get it open, he wouldn’t be able to step out.

Cas lifted a hand to his neck and shuddered. A collar wrapped around his throat, tight enough to chafe but not enough to choke unless he pulled on it. At the back of the collar, he felt a length of links dangling down. Cas sat up and turned around to find the place where the chain had been welded into the floor.

The metal in both the cage and the collar bore etchings of warding. With the brand in his back and the warding surrounding him, Cas’s powers had been stifled, leaving him unable to flee. Cas shivered and pulled his knees to his chest. He folded his wings over himself. 

He sat motionless for a while. What could he possibly do? Even if he could fight, there was no one here to fight. He wouldn’t fight though, not ever again.

Not after what he’d done to the angels. 

If he had just restrained himself, offered mercy and forgiveness rather than wrath, maybe he could call out to them, ask for help. Who knew if that would even work with the warding… But it didn’t matter if it would work, because no angel would -- should -- ever show Castiel kindness of any sort. 

Just because he couldn’t communicate with the angels didn’t mean he couldn’t hear prayer. Dean’s voice whispered in his head, too muffled by the warding to hear well, but if Cas strained he could pick up on the words, and the worry. 

Dean was worried about him, and wanted him back, but Cas couldn’t come. He could barely move from one spot.

Cas’s head snapped up as a thud echoed from somewhere beyond this dark room he’d been imprisoned in. Voices mumbled, muffled by the walls. A door swung open, washing the room in dim yellow light. Four figures filed into the room, all of them approaching his cage. 

As they came up to him, Castiel realized for the first time that he’d been stripped, leaving him in nothing but underwear. He wrapped his wings tighter around himself, black feathers forming a blanket to shield him from their eyes. Was this how Adam and Eve felt in the garden of Eden when they first felt shame for their natural bodies? Cas hadn’t felt this way earlier, with Dean, but the way these people watched him with hungry eyes made him shiver.

Among the four, Cas recognized the vampire sheriff. At this point, he decided to assume all of them were vampires.

The other man he didn’t recognize, but he was sure he’d seen one of the women somewhere before. She lifted something to her lips, and Cas figured it out. The heavyset girl with frizzy red hair and glasses pushed up on her nose was the same person who ran the counter at the motel, though she had a different milkshake this time. 

The second woman, who Cas had never seen, pushed to the front of the group. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself,” she giggled. “But you were right, Slim. I knew the trap would be worth it, but I never thought we’d catch an angel.”

Cas didn’t look up at her face. He remained on the floor, staring straight ahead, and all he saw of this woman was her tall leather boots clinking with silver chains and netted leggings.  
The sheriff, who the woman called ‘Slim,’ nudged her shoulder. “I damn well told you this would work out. He was easy to catch, too. I got lucky though, overheard birdie here tell that man we drank up how he doesn’t fight.”

Sheriff Slim pointed his thumb at a corpse in the corner. Cas hadn’t been able to see it earlier, in the dark. Now that he looked though, he recognized the body, even if it did look a bit different drained of blood. Michael, the tattooed man with the knife who tried to rob Cas, only to run off in fear. His big body appeared shrunken, shriveled like a juiced orange, squashed against the wall, and the tattoo of a half-nude woman on his arm had been peeled off, leaving a raw red square of exposed meat beneath several layers of skin.

“An angel that doesn’t fight,” the woman echoed. “I suppose we don’t have to worry about him fighting back.” She slotted a key into the lock of the cage and let herself in, closing the creaking steel door behind her with a clink. “Look at me, birdie.”

Castiel stared straight ahead. He did not like this woman, the way her voice lilted with laughter, and yet still burned cold, the way he felt her eyes on him, hungry and feral, the way she called him ‘birdie’ as if he were no more than a pet, a caged animal she’d snatched from the sky and locked up… though maybe she wasn’t entirely wrong. 

“I said, look at me.” 

Cold metal pressed under his chin. For just a second, he assumed it was no more than a steel blade, capable of causing a bit of pain, but no more. 

She tilted his chin up with the point of her weapon, and his eyes followed the silvery edge of an angel blade (where had she gotten an angel blade?) to along her arm, finally settling on her face. He took in the details of this woman, pulling his wings in tighter with each realization.

She wore a tight black jacket covered in patches. He almost heaved when he realized that those patches were made of tanned human skin, preserving the patterns and figures into them. Luckily, Jimmy Novak had no tattoos, or Cas’s skin might’ve been sewn into the fabric, perhaps in the space just above her newest addition, a scantily-clad woman torn from Michael’s arm.

When he tore his gaze from her clothing, looking at her face fared no better. Her redwood eyes had been shrouded in dark makeup, black curls framed her features, and her lips, painted with a sweet-smelling gloss, parted in a chilling grin to reveal her bloody fangs.

“That’s better,” said the vampire. “My name is Poppy. Tell me yours.”

Cas shook his head. He clenched his jaw and refused to open his mouth. An angel’s name could be a powerful thing in the right context, and she didn’t need any more power over him.

She cut him.

To be cut with an angel blade isn’t the same as a blade of any other metal. Even the demon knife Sam had gotten years ago didn’t feel quite the same, as strong as it was. An angel blade burned with holy, purifying heat when it cut. It stung, like any other cut, but beneath the wound, burrowing into the skin, it scorched him. 

Castiel whimpered, but didn’t answer her.

She cut him again, sliding the point along the underside of his jaw. Poppy curved it downwards, dangerously close to his throat. 

An angel blade to the throat, even if the point didn’t carve deep enough to kill, could be catastrophic. An angel’s grace could spill from their body, leaving them no more than a human, powerless and helpless, far too fragile to survive long. 

“Cas,” he whispered. 

“What a cute little name for a cute little bird.” With her free hand, she ran her fingers over his feathers, then squeezed with a crushing grip. Cas tensed up. Angel wings should not be touched and soiled in this way, they were only meant to be seen by family: his father, his siblings… and the Winchesters. 

“Sloane, you’re sure he can’t fly off with the warding?”

Sloane, the milkshake drinker, nodded. “Little extra won’t hurt though, and it’ll keep him from healing.” She had a sharp, nasally voice that reminded Cas of a scratched record. 

Record scratch, freeze frame, and he wondered how he got himself into this situation.

Poppy pressed the point of her blade into the hollow of his throat, drawing a single drop of blood. “Move those pretty wings, angel.” When he refused, folding them closer to cover as much of himself as he could, she dug her nails into his feathers. He felt a shaft break. “Move them, or I’ll pluck them bare.”

To avoid taking any unnecessary damage to his wings, Cas unfurled them, exposing bare skin. The vampire slid her knife down from his neck. 

“See, Cas, my little birdie, ever since Dick Roman decided to poison the human blood supply, my kind have grown desperate.” As she spoke, she began to carve, sliding the knife between his ribs, never deep enough to kill. “We tried to feed on those hunters, who got all tangled up in our web, but they’d just eaten.” Rage shook in her voice, and she dragged the point of the blade down to the bottom of his ribcage, tearing a ragged gash that ripped a scream from Cas’s throat. “And then my friends dropped dead, screaming and choking on the blood.”

She tugged the knife out of his skin. Cas dared look down at his chest, where she’d carved a series of wards muffling his grace. The blood trickled over his skin, weeping from burning cuts digging into his true form in a way that was almost suffocating. 

Cas, panting, looked up at the vampire. “Why… why are you hurting me?” If Poppy were an angel, she would have every excuse, but she was not. “What have… what have I done to… to deserve this…?” Cas reached up to touch the wards cut into his skin. Blood spilled over his fingers, hot and sticky and viscous. 

The vampire tossed her head back and cackled. “I’m hurting you because it’s fun, angel. I’ve never gotten the chance to cut up one of your kind before.”

She stabbed the knife down, sinking the blade clean through Castiel’s foot. 

He screamed and tried to yank his foot away from her, but pulling only dug the edge deeper. She held the handle firm, and he couldn’t get it out. He reached out with trembling hands to pull the blade out, but Poppy grabbed both his wrists on one hand with a quick, fluid motion. His feathers fluffed up and Cas fluttered his wings. They beat against the bars of the cage, scattering black feathers that spun in the air as they fell. 

“Take it out,” Cas cried. “Please, it hurts, please take it out.” 

“It’s supposed to hurt.” The vampire slid the blade out, twisting it as she did so, cutting into bloody flesh and muscle, only to plunge it into his other foot, sending the blade through till it struck against a metal bar below.

At another time, when he had the mindset of a warrior, Cas would prove his strength and power by holding back his reactions to pain and injury. It took a lot for him to scream and sob. Yet now, with the rage and resolve he’d once dedicated to battle evaporated away like mist in the morning, Cas didn’t hide his pain. He let his tears fall, he screamed, and he begged for mercy.

“Stop, stop please, what do you want? Why… why are you doing this?”

As she pulled the knife out, agonizingly slow, she murmured, “I like to play with my food,” into his ear.

He shivered. “F-food?”

“Most humans will kill us if we try to eat them. We got lucky with the mugger, but he’s one of few people with drinkable blood left. So we’ve had to look to alternatives. I refuse to force animal blood down my throat. And then we catch a rumor about vampires of old.”

She returned the knife to his face, setting the point on his lower eyelid. “Once, there was an old vampire family, very close to our father.” She pushed the point into the sensitive skin, creating shallow cuts. “On occasion, they needed to boost their strength, to become more powerful, so they put together some wards and spells.” She stuck the knife into the corner of his eye and he yelped. “They summoned an angel, and then they drank it.”

Cas’s heart couldn’t possibly beat faster, and yet it did. The vampire released her crushing grip on his hands to settle over his heart, icy fingers soaking up his pulse.

“It takes a long time for one of your kind to die. Just as long as you have a little of that grace, you’ll live.” She cut again, deeper. Cas choked on a sob, his salty tears stinging against the wounds, streaking red lines down his face. 

“I’m gonna keep you in a cage, on a leash.” Poppy moved from one eye to the next to continue carving her wards. “You’re gonna be my pet bird, Cassie. I own you now, I own your blood.” Cas tried to pull away, so she grabbed and twisted his hair to hold him still. “You’re gonna keep my kind alive, and I’m going to taste your power.”

She trailed her fingers through his hair, slipping her hand down to cup his face. She thumbed away a trail of tear-stained blood and brought it to her tongue. 

The vampire shuddered, but not with disgust. She could taste his angelic power, he knew it, and from that look in her red eyes, she liked it. The vampire bent forward with her leech-teeth glinting in the dim light. 

She punctured the side of his neck with a fang. 

Cas flinched away from her, flailing his wings. The feathers shuddered, rusling as he shivered. Poppy stabbed her knife through the nearest wing. 

Castiel screamed. She shouldn’t even be touching his wings, nevermind carving into them, but the vampire slashed at his feathers, cleaving off the fine edges. He screamed until his voice broke, struggling on instinct. Her touch was vile, her touch was wrong, her cold blade and colder fingers snapping off shafts. Poppy clipped his wings, and she didn’t stop till the angel caught on. She only cut when he struggled, so Cas forced his trembling wings to lie as still as he could, and finally, she let them go. 

And then she pulled out a lighter. 

He smelled the holy oil inside of it. Touching the flames would kill him, but anything heated by the flame would only make him wish he were dead. 

Cas pulled his mangled wings flat against his back. “P-please,” he whimpered, voice scratchy and hoarse. “Tale, take what you w-want, but, but don’t, please don’t… I beg you, please…” Cas clasped his hands and looked up at the vampire, croaking out desperate pleas. “Not my wings, anyth-thing but the wings, please, take, take anything else…” 

“What a pathetic little bargain,” she chuckled, “since I own all parts of you. I can take what I wish, when I wish. But I suppose I can humor this request, since you asked so nicely.” She flicked her lighter closed and pocketed it. 

Cas took a deep, shuddering breath, but his seconds of relief vanished when she circled behind him. 

To protect his wings, he forced himself to remain completely still, or at least as close to still as he could while trembling, when she reached around from behind to slit his wrists with her angel blade. She dragged it over his collarbone, freeing vivid red blood. Cas’s pulse raced, only pushing more of the hot, crimson blood from his veins. The coppery smell stung the back of his throat and he almost gagged. 

Poppy set her teeth just beneath his ear. Cas shivered and squeezed his eyes shut as her tongue flicked over fresh puncture wounds. 

She lifted a hand to the collar wrapped around his neck and removed it, uncovering his throbbing pulse. Too late, he realized why she’d unchained him. The cage barely fit both of them, so Poppy dragged him out. 

She shoved him to his knees on the cold floor. The other three vampires hovered around him, circling vultures, locust swarms, a nest of wasps. He shrank, lowering to the floor, but he had nowhere to go. They surrounded him, teeth extending from their gums. Poppy bit down on his neck once more and swallowed a mouthful of blood.

“Feed, my friends,” she cackled, his blood dripping down her face.

The vampires descended upon him, two of them latching onto his bleeding wrists and one biting down on his slashed collarbone. Poppy gulped down mouthfuls of his blood, tearing his skin, her teeth and tongue ravenous for a taste of his grace. The vampires sighed and gasped as his power ran through them, and they only became more ravenous.

As they drank from him, his vision faded in and out, spotting with blackness. Cas’s head spun and he couldn’t look at anything without feeling sick. He squeezed his eyes shut and wheezed, trying to breathe through the stench of his own blood.

Dizzying pain and spinning blackness overtook him. 

Cas slumped forward, breath hitching, fast and shallow, and if he’d eaten anything at all recently, he might’ve vomited. Cas tried to pass out. He wanted nothing more than to pass out.

Yet, when he closed his eyes, instead of soothing nothingness, he felt only pain.


	6. Blood and Nectar

Dean spent the rest of the day driving. He crossed the tiny town, road by road, for hours, occasionally shouting out a window. The few people out walking around, clinging to greasy food that made Dean’s stomach growl, barely looked up at him.

He eventually reached the point of hunger where he was finally willing to listen to his little brother about his meat-heavy, processed diet. Dean stopped by to talk to the coroner Poppy about her vegetable garden, but she had closed up, with a sign labeled “Out for lunch!” hanging on the door. With that option gone, he submitted to the mortification of being seen purchasing rabbit food in a store. 

Dean only wasted time eating because he knew he’d need the energy. If Cas was in danger, he couldn’t fight to save him on an empty stomach.

He drove up to the nearest store, parked in the shade of a tree in the corner of the lot, and sulked inside. Dean picked up a plastic basket and walked along the produce section, shoving anything he could stomach labeled organic inside. He ended up with a few tomatoes, a head of lettuce, bottled water, a couple of carrots and an onion. After a moment of debating, he risked grabbing some eggs, for protein. 

As Dean loaded the bags into his car, a movement caught his eye. He turned to find a man wandering the parking lot. At first, it only seemed like someone searching for his car, but as he came closer, Dean recognized him.

The man who’d tried to escape vampires by standing on top of a cop car. 

His witness, who was supposed to have vanished.

Dean shut the car door and walked towards him. He wanted to run, tackle the man to the ground, demand to know where the vampires were so he could hunt them down.

They could have Cas. A nest of vampires could have Cas, and he knew how likely it was that the nest wanted him to hunt them down. Some part of this had to be a trap, but he couldn’t bring himself to give a shit, not with his angel’s safety on the line.

Dean rummaged in his pocket for one of his fake IDs. He jogged up to the man and held it up. “FBI,” he called. “You’re Ronald Ferris, right? I need to ask you a few questions.”

The man sighed. “Yeah, I’m Ronald, town joke. Look, I already told the cops--”

“This is just a follow up.”

Ronald folded his arms and glared. “I was drunk, okay? And I rolled a few blunts at a party that night.” Dean had seen plenty of people excuse the supernatural with their own intoxication, so he said nothing, waiting for Ronald to fill the silence. “I thought there were some people chasing me, and I thought they had fangs, but I was wrong.”

“Were there any real people?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, the people existed, party guests, but they weren’t chasing me, and they certainly weren’t trying to drink my blood. I know I damaged the paint on the car but I’ve already paid for the replacement, so I don’t see why you need any more information.”

“It’s strange, but we have reason to believe this could be connected to a larger case,” Dean bullshitted. “Hallucinogens snuck into drugs and drinks with a stronger effect than usual.”

“Alright, sure, whatever,” he muttered. “What do you want to know?”

“Names of any people you recognize from your hallucinations.” Dean pulled out a pat of sticky notes and a pen, fingers brushing against the gun tucked under his jacket. By luck, he hadn’t wasted the time changing out of his suit yet. “And,” he added, “Any addresses to places you visited or think you visited while intoxicated.” 

Ronald wrote down a few names in sloppy handwriting. Deciphering that would be like trying to understand hieroglyphics, but he’d have to make do.

He scribbled out a series of names, most of which Dean didn’t recognize.

“You like to party with the coroner?”

Ronald shrugged. “Hey, she ain’t a cop. She can party all she likes, none of that drinking while on duty shit. I like to invite her cause she’s, ah,” his face flushed, “well, you’ve seen her. You know.”

Dean chuckled. “Yeah, I guess she is kinda hot.”

Ronald relaxed a bit as Dean agreed with him. He, with a little more enthusiasm, added two addresses, one of which was the sheriff’s office. That must’ve been where he’d ended up on top of a cop car. Worst place to go on a night of drunken partying, but at least it was efficient, assuming being arrested was the end goal. 

“Second place is a house,” Ronald explained. “It’s private property, so no one ever goes there without permission from the owner. That badge should get you in though.”

“Who’s the owner?”

Ronald shrugged. “Some girl named Sloane, her granddad runs the motel. If you’re staying there, you might’ve seen her. Red hair, kinda chubby, likes milkshakes. I swear, she gets paid the same as a damned CEO just for handing out keys.”

Dean could not picture milkshake girl, apparently named Sloane, from the front desk of the motel owning a house where everyone went to party.

Though maybe she was much more outgoing before the leviathans poisoned the food.

“Well that should be enough,” said Dean. He shouldn’t waste too much time talking to some drunk partier. Dean stuffed the names and addresses in his pocket. He handed Ronald a fake card with one of his other-other-other phone numbers on it. “If you remember anything else, give me a call.”

“Yeah, sure.” Ronald left him, driving off. 

Dean got into his own car, and spent the rest of the day driving back and forth between the names on the list and the motel.

Eventually, he caved and ate the pie. He needed stress relief, after all. And damn, it tasted good. Where had Cas learned how to bake? Though if he could fully assemble a board game with a flick of his hand, maybe it wasn’t that hard to bake a pie.

Maybe he should buy a few board games for Cas. Something easy to transport, without too many pieces. Last time he played a game with Cas, it had been solely to keep him in one spot to talk about what had happened, and Dean lost his temper and scattered the game all over the floor. Hadn’t even helped pick it up. No wonder Cas didn’t wanna be around him. 

Maybe he was avoiding Dean on purpose? 

Cas’s cat took that moment to scream. How the hell could such a tiny kitten be so loud? But at least, by making her presence known, she reminded Dean that Cas wouldn’t have run away. Maybe he had every reason to stop associating with Dean, but he wasn’t about to leave the damn cat. And if Cas cared about her, Dean would care for her. He picked Honey up, got out one of her milk bottles, and fed her.

He adjusted his grip for a few minutes, trying to get her to stop squirming. Finally, she settled in his hand, purring as she drank.

Once he finished, Dean went out again. It had gotten dark now, and even with the street lights he couldn’t find anything, and Dean, unfortunately, remembered that he had to help the kitten relieve herself, so with a last reluctant look at the empty street, Dean returned to the motel.

Sam texted him, repeatedly, to remind him to sleep tonight. As much as Dean wanted to risk leviathan poison to chug as much whiskey as he could fit in his stomach without throwing it back up in the same minute, but then he’d be stoned and hungover in the morning, and as Sam wouldn’t stop texting to remind him, he couldn’t save Cas if he couldn’t see straight. After taking care of the cat to the best of his ability, eating an entire tomato like an apple, and pacing around the room for an hour yelling prayers to the empty walls, Dean finally fell into bed, his shoes still on, and blacked out. 

If Dean remembered his dream that night, he might’ve woken up with images of piercing fangs, bloody gashes, and black wings pounding against a cage, feathers slashed and clipped, unable to fly away, but when Dean woke up a few hours later with a gasp, his dream faded in an instant, and a moment later he forgot that he’d dreamed at all.

Dean got up with a groan. He hadn’t even drank, and still, he woke up with a throbbing headache. He rubbed his thumbs against the side of his head.

Eyes blurry from exhaustion, Dean walked into the motel’s excuse for a kitchen to make himself some eggs. By some luck, he found a salt and pepper shaker. While waiting for his eggs to cook, Dean fed Honey her milk. 

Hopefully he’d find Cas before running out. 

Dean changed out of his FBI suit. Today, he’d do his scouting on foot, where he could look for any physical remnants of where Cas may have been.

In the florida heat, he had to leave his flannel behind, limiting his layers to a shirt and jacket. He filled his jacket with any and every weapon he could fit inside, only making room for first aid supplies. Sure, Cas had his grace, but Dean wasn’t about to take a risk on his condition. For all he knew, Cas could have life-threatening injuries.

He ate his eggs faster than he’d eaten anything in a while, chugged a bottle of water, and left the motel room.

Dean looked at the ground when he walked. Cas hadn’t worn shoes, so he’d be looking for bare footprints, and anything else that might give away where he’d been… like blood splatter. But hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that.

“Think like Cas,” he said to himself. “What would Castiel do?”

Probably follow a bee. 

And of course, once Dean thought it, he knew he had to be right, so he added bees to his list of things to scan the ground for. It took a while of walking along the street, but eventually he found a bee, bouncing back and forth between flowers. It stayed in that one spot, so Dean kept walking. He found another bee, and one more, and finally, scuffs in the dirt from where someone might have walked.

He found himself stepping off the side of the road into the grass. A cluster of mossy trees sprung up around him, and gathered by the roots, he found flowers covered in bees.

A low buzzing droned somewhere farther into the trees, and Dean followed the sound. 

A whole hive of bees buzzed in the branches of a tall oak. Dean gave them quite a bit of space, since the bees might’ve liked Cas but would probably sting him. Even if a bee did try to sting Cas, that would do nothing to an angel.

That was when Dean noticed the flattened indents in the grass.

He turned, and found a path cutting off the main road. Dean walked up to it, eyes sweeping the ground.

Castiel told him not to step on any flowers, because the bees needed them for food. So, knowing that, there was no way Cas would have crushed a whole patch of flowers, at least not on purpose. Maybe he might’ve crushed them if he’d fallen, if he’d been pushed to the ground by one of the rare few entities that could overpower him.

And then he saw the blood.

Smelled the holy oil.

Blood and oil splattered the grass, mingling with the pollen and nectar of trampled flowers. Dean stared at the ground, forgot to breathe, forgot to blink, as he dragged his eyes to the path. It was a dirt road, no pavement, with marks scuffed along it.

Tire tracks, footprints, and what could only by the tracks left by dragging a body along the ground.

They had him, they had Cas. Clearly they knew he was an angel, since they’d gone and grabbed some holy oil. After the war in Heaven, weapons used against angels had become quite easy to get a hold of, if you just so happened to find a body. 

Cas had to be alive though, right? Dean didn’t see any black wing marks scorched on the ground, so they must’ve taken Cas alive.

Dean checked the address on his phone, and found that he’d come too close to the house Ronald had partied at and seen vampires to be a coincidence. That meant a group of vampires wanted Cas, and Dean knew where they were. Just not how many or what they planned to do with their new captive.

Dean needed to get more blades.


	7. Envenomated

Castiel had enough spare grace to do one of two things. He could heal some of his wounds, at least easing the pain, or he could try to make a mental connection with Dean, a bridge between their minds.

Cas heard every prayer, mostly from Dean, and a few from Sam. He heard the worry in their voices, even if Dean did try to mask all of his emotions in rage. It didn’t work; Cas caught the undertones of his words and knew that Dean was afraid. Afraid for him. So Cas, in his few moments of consciousness after the vampires finally left him, ecstatic on angel blood, sapped what little grace he could spare. 

He didn’t know where he was, but he could share his memories with Dean. The connection didn’t have much strength, but he had to hope Dean would see the images and know Cas was alive. Captive, and agonized, with vampire bite marks stabbed through his skin and gashes from an angel blade marked into his ribs, but alive. 

When he could not hold the connection any longer, Cas slumped. He laid his head against the metal bars on the floor and pulled his wings over himself.

He woke up to pain.

Is this what it felt like to be human? Vulnerable, aching, weak? Surrounded by wards and with the grace drank from his veins, he had so little of his power available to him that he might as well be human.

The collar and cage bars dug into his skin, his feet throbbed with an ache that spiked every few seconds. The blood had dried from where he'd been cut and bit, but the wounds still stung, and every small movement had Cas wincing and sucking in air through his teeth. His wings ached from where he’d been slashed and cut. He suffered the pain just to pull them closer.

Cas must’ve blacked out again, because he startled awake when cold water poured over him, soaking him completely.

“I’m here for breakfast, angel.”

Shivering, or maybe trembling, Cas looked up at the vampire. He couldn’t quite tell, but something about her looked different. Like she’d been exhausted the night before, but finally gotten some rest. Only, she’d been perfectly healthy before drinking his blood, yet she seemed more so, now.

He couldn't keep the shake from his voice when he spoke. “H-how much… are you… how much blood…”

Cas panted between every few words. The light burned his eyes, and every time he tried to focus his vision on any one point, his stomach rolled and black spots flashed over his eyes. Cas let his eyes go unfocused, but it didn’t do much to calm the twisting in his gut. Everything around him looked fuzzy, liquid, unsteady, like he only saw a mirage.

“Just a little snack,” Poppy assured. “Hold still, Cassie.” She held up an empty syringe and reached out.

Cas flinched behind his wings.

She grabbed one, the feathers rustling as his whole wing shook. She dug her nails under his feathers and felt around the skin, moving towards a joint where she poised the needle to draw his blood from a vein. 

“Not my, not… please, not the wings…”

She ignored his pleas and stuck the needle under his skin. “Oh birdie, you’ve got nothing to bargain with, nothing to convince me otherwise, nothing to defend yourself with. So why should I do as you ask?” She filled the syringe and squeezed a few drops of blood in her mouth before tucking the needle back in her pocket. “In fact, I could do whatever I want with you, and you can’t do anything about it.”

Castiel paled as she pulled something from her pocket. The lighter, filled with holy oil, that she’d threatened him with the night before.

Lowering himself to the floor, Cas looked up with pleading, desperate eyes glossy with brimming tears. “Please,” he choked out, “I’ll do… I can… Please…” The dam burst, and Cas sobbed out stinging tears. “I beg you, please.”

The water soaking his black feathers prevented them from catching fire. 

It didn’t prevent the burning.

When people are caught in fires, they tend to douse themselves in water, believing it’ll save them from being burned. It’ll keep the flames off, yes, but not the heat. The water boils, and it scalds, and the victims of the blaze blister and bubble under the heat until they burn to death. 

That same excruciating sensation tore across Cas’s wings. The holy fire would kill him if it touched him, but the water absorbed the flame, soaking in the heat and scorching across Cas’s back. He screamed, tears pouring from his eyes, and collapsed on the ground, wailing, praying for someone--for Dean--to save him. His feathers curled and cracked under the heat, and they burned along the edges, down into his skin, blazing pain soaked up and searing. Feathers fell as they burned up, as his wings thrashed, scorched off his back in frayed pieces and scattered soot and ash. 

When Poppy took the flame away, the heat remained. She watched him writhe on the floor, a delighted grin splitting her fanged face. She took a handful of Cas’s hair and twisted till he whimpered. With her other hand, she dug her fingers into his scorched feathers, sending spasms of pain shooting out from wherever she touched.

“Didn’t plan on making fried chicken this morning, but I suppose it works.” She inhaled. “Smells good.”

Cas shrank against the floor, muffling his cries with an arm pressed over his face. He tasted blood, but couldn’t tell if it was from his slashed wrist or from the coppery tang in the back of his throat that rose up when he screamed.

When the vampire let go he slumped, boneless, and laid unmoving, save for the shakes running through him.

“I’ll be back soon,” she promised. “Slim is picking something up for me to use on you.” She dug a sharp fingernail into one of his burns and he gasped out a raspy cry, black spots bursting around him. “We could just drink you then leave you alone, but where’s the fun in that?”

Poppy locked the cage, left the room, and shut the door, leaving Cas in the darkness.

Cas clenched his jaw and spread his wings. Every movement sent pain spiking through him, but he had to survey the damage. Squinting through the shadows, Cas looked over his shoulder at his wings. He wouldn’t be using them for a while. Red burns scorched under his feathers, patchy skin visible through the places where some of the coverts had burnt off. His secondary feathers had taken most of the damage, with many of them charred fully off.

The damaged feathers would regrow if plucked, but so many of his feathers lay broken all around him, and he could barely move his wings without crying, so he left the burnt and clipped feathers where they were. At some point, he’d pull them out and let them regrow… but only if he ever got free. If his wings healed here, they’d just be hurt again.

Castiel picked up a broken feather from the ground and examined it in the low light. To have his wings, his true form, damaged, it felt wrong. Dirty, vile, unnatural, like something sacred had been desecrated.

Alone in the dark, Castiel choked on a sob. Was this supposed to be divine justice, burning up the wings of a fallen angel?

His hand trembled as he held the broken feather. What had he become? Cas did not regret pulling Dean out of Hell, siding with the Winchesters, exploring the idea of free will, taking the destiny laid out for him and making it his own. But he did regret what he’d done after. Siding with a demon, lying to his friends--no, his family, destroying Sam’s mind, slaughtering thousands of his own kind… Raphael was too dangerous to be allowed to live, but his followers? All they needed was guidance. Angels follow orders, after all. 

Most of them.

Did Castiel not deserve this? After all he’d done? To be caged, with warding limiting his power carved into his skin, feet impaled so he couldn’t walk, blood consumed, and wings burnt up in boiling water, it wasn’t quite Hell, but still, it was punishment. No amount of loving and understanding nature or refusing to cause harm could make up for what he’d done.

As much as Cas wanted to call for help, pray to his Father, beg forgiveness from siblings, scream Dean’s name till his voice broke, he resisted the urge. Cas had sinned, and sinners must be punished. 

So when Poppy returned, hours later, Cas didn’t scramble away or plead for mercy. He wrapped his throbbing wings around himself and waited with his eyes squeezed shut. 

Poppy carried a bag slung around her shoulder. Small, not fit for containing much. He cracked an eye open and saw something sticking out of the top, something he couldn’t quite place. Poppy knelt beside Cas. He flinched. His wings rustled, feathers shifting and fluffing up in response to his agitation. She laughed at the pathetic sight of him, trembling at her mere presence.

“You know, I’ve always wondered how much angel grace protects you. Does it keep you from getting sick? Can you regrow severed limbs? Do toxins still affect you?” He said nothing. “Well?”

Cas swallowed. “Th-the, the grace keeps us, from ah, obtaining most… most ailments that would affect a human, but, um, it isn’t all-powerful…” He glanced down at the cuts across his ribs. “Especially when limited.” He would heal slowly now, and maybe he could even get sick, or be poisoned.

Poppy nodded. “So in your normal state, this wouldn't affect you at all. But in your current state, you’re vulnerable, harmless… Good.”

She pulled a thin spike from her bag. “Have you ever heard of a lionfish?”

“Oh, yes,” Cas said. “I helped make them.” 

“They’re quite a nuisance, you know, at least in these waters. Invasive, predatory, venomous.” Poppy set a hand on his wing, ignoring the way it fluttered and tried to shrink away. “If you helped make them, surely you know about their venom.”

“The venom… uh, was my older brothers’ idea.” The archangels, save Gabriel who had other… ‘interests’ to occupy himself, found enjoyment in watching living creatures tear one another apart, so they fully supported the idea of venoms and poisons inside animals. Cas never understood it. Watching animals kill each other never brough Cas joy, only sorrow.

“Allow me to demonstrate the effects, then,” Poppy offered, or at least sounded like she offered, but Cas knew it wasn’t a request. 

Cas closed his eyes and braced for the pain. 

The spike stung when it slid in. She pushed it deep, till it hit bone, scraping the point along the solid surface. Cas bit down on his lip till blood welled up, a scream rising up in his scratched-up throat. 

The venom flowed through him, worming its way through his bloodstream in hot rivers like chambers of magma beneath a volcano. First his wings had been burned on the outside, and now the inside, the skin swelling up in a red, throbbing mass as the toxin bored its way into his body, spreading in spasms across his wing. The vampire stuck one spike in after the other, sliding them into sensitive joints and beneath feathers along the underside of where his wings met skin. 

Cas’s wings trembled and jerked as each wave of pain ripped through him, pulsating in tune with his heartbeat.

He groaned and laid his head against the cage, bars digging into his skin. Cas gasped out weak cries, but any screams he might’ve coughed out died in his throat, which felt too sore to drag any sound from, scratchy and raw, tasting of iron. So he settled for heavy breaths as he tried to inhale and exhale through the pain.

“I can’t wait to taste your blood later, birdie,” said Poppy. “I’m sure it’ll have a nice kick to it. Spicy.”

Castiel looked up at her with glazed eyes, bleary from pain and exhaustion and the stress of his abduction and torture. He tried to answer her, ask if the venom would hurt her too, in hopes that maybe she’d change her mind about drinking his tainted blood.

He only managed to produce a dry cough.

“I have a feast to prepare for, so…” Poppy finally removed the spikes, one by one pulling them in sharp tugs off his skin. “That’s all for now, but don’t worry angel, I’ll be back soon.”

With no ability or energy to protest, Cas closed his eyes, and prayed for unconsciousness.


	8. To Kill the Queen

Sam failed to convince Dean to wait for backup. He didn’t have time to wait for Sam to haul ass all the way down here, so instead, he geared up with blades, as many as he could carry, and guns loaded with bullets soaked in dead man’s blood. Once, there’d been a time where he feared vampires, but after demons, angels, archangels, and leviathans, vampires became as ordinary as a vengeful spirit. He knew how to handle them.

Dean took care of the cat. He salted and warded the motel room. Packed the car. Loaded a bunch of first aid supplies in with water, a blanket, and a pile of clothes in case Cas needed something cleaner to change into. He folded the clothes, for once.

Since he didn’t know what kind of condition he’d be finding Cas in, Dean decided it would be best to prepare for everything, so that meant packing a mile-long roll of bandages, suture needles, painkillers, antibiotics, burn creams, alcohol wipes, ice packs, and, hell, he even threw in a bottle of NyQuil.

As he drove, he nearly crushed the steering wheel in his hands, knuckles red and white from the force of his grip. Dean stared straight ahead in total silence, jaw clenched, no music playing, eyes locked on the road. He hit a pothole straight on, not even bothering to swerve around it. This wasn’t his Baby, he didn’t care about minor damage. And even if it was the Impala, what was more important, a car or Cas?

He sped up, slowly increasing pressure on the gas pedal until it would go no further. The tiny town blurred around him, sun bleached brick, gravel roads, and sharp-fronded palms. The buildings thinned out and scraggly pines replaced the palms--

And then oaks with scraps of moss dangling from the branches.

Dean took a sharp turn onto the worn road he’d found earlier, tires rolling over whatever was left of the bloodstains and dried drops of holy oil. He followed old tire tracks, mostly smoothed over by now, down a straight, narrow road that could barely qualify as two-lane. Dean checked the GPS on his phone every two seconds to make sure he was still going the right way. The gray road grew bumpier, rolling with dirt and gravel.

A house blurred on the horizon, shadowed by the outstretched, clawed limbs of mossy oaks. Dean eased off the gas pedal, slowing to a crawl. He eased the car as close as he could without announcing his presence, moving into the grass so the sound of crunching gravel wouldn’t give him away. 

He parked behind a clump of thick, blade-leaved palm bushes and shut the car off. This was close enough that he should be able to get Cas into the car without wasting too much time. 

Dean checked his weapons, then checked them again. He didn’t know exactly how many vampires he’d be facing, but the average nest was usually never more than ten. He just knew there was more than one, so he brought enough bullets to pump at least a dozen vamps full of dead man’s blood. He had his angel blade, but in case he dropped it, he also had quite a few other blades sheathed and strapped all over his body, most of them in easy places to reach, but one more strapped to his back under his shirt.

Dean stalked the property. It looked old and uncared for from the outside, probably a result of its owner being stoned off her ass by consuming just a few too many leviathan-poisoned milkshakes.

He stalked around the single-storey off-white house stained in green moss, or maybe it was mold. Broad shadows from the walls obscured him. The sun crept closer to the horizon, and Dean guessed maybe an hour or two till sunset. The mosquitos poked their way out of whatever hellhole they came from and buzzed around him. Dean squashed one, splattering the guts of the first damn bloodsucker he’d kill that night over the bark of a skinny pine. 

As Dean circled the house, he met no resistance, which his dad always reminded him was never a good thing. 

This had to be a trap, but Dean entered the house anyways, picking the lock on a side door and easing it open with a metallic squeak of the hinges. Yet another mistake. How many was he on now, four? Five? Hell, this whole hunt started to feel like a mistake. He should’ve just sucked it up, dealt with his impatience, and stayed with Sam.

Dean found himself in some sort of storage room, full of old cardboard boxes and black trash bags. He could smell something foul somewhere in the room, but a thick blanket of some sort of air freshener dampened the stench, leaving behind a sweet and sour odor. 

He nudged one bag open with his toe and grimaced. Body parts, mostly severed appendages, chopped up and sucked dry of blood, and partially preserved with chemicals. That preservative chemical smell, and the underlying stench of rotting bodies, must’ve been what he’d been picking up, smothered under layers and layers of unnatural floral air freshener. Dean gagged on the stench and covered his nose with the top of his shirt.

He stepped around the boxes and bags, careful not to step on anything, but in his attempt to avoid stepping into a box, he stepped back over a trash bag, heel crunching into what felt like a bone.   
When he got to the door out of the storage room, he tested the handle. Unlocked, so he eased it open with one hand, the other braced on the handle of his angel blade.

When nothing sprang from the darkness to attack him, Dean nudged the door farther open, peering into a dark hallway, walls lined with some of the ugliest yellow flower wallpaper he’d ever seen, and practically growing up in cheap motels, he’d seen a lot of ugly wallpaper. Dusty picture frames hung on wire hooks, nailed into the wall.

How could such a dingy place be the site of a party?

It wasn’t really that big of a party according to Ronald, less than ten people. In fact, thinking back on it, the two missing locals, including the blood bank nurse had been some of the guests at the party. 

He didn’t have time to think about this now though. Dean walked through the house, gun in one hand and blade in the other. Still, he met no resistance.

Had he gotten the wrong address somehow? The whole place seemed abandoned. But no, that wouldn’t make sense, how would the body parts have gotten here? Unless this was just a dumping ground and the nest worked somewhere else. Dean almost stopped to check his phone again to make sure he was in the right place.

Then he heard a scream.

Castiel.

Dean forced himself to move quietly. He’d learned how to run decently quiet while still going at a good speed, but on these creaky old floors, he had to slow down. Dean edged down the hall until he found another sealed door. 

Another scream, this one quieter, more of a whine or whimper, sounded from behind it. 

Dean tested the knob. Unlocked. He flung the door open and it cracked into the drywall as the brass knob slammed into it. 

It took him a moment to figure out what, exactly, he saw. A cage had been bolted into the floor and ceiling at the back of the room, and between the metal bars, two dark black shapes jerked and flailed, scattering scraps of something that looked like feathers. He’d seen those shapes before, although they’d been less damaged. Still a little damaged, frayed and missing a few feathers, but not nearly as bad as they looked now. Last time, he’d only seen their shadow, but this time, he could see their physical form. Cas’s wings. 

And Cas himself beneath them, curled up on the floor with tears streaming from his eyes, trembling, bloody, stripped, chained, and covered in gashes Dean instantly recognized as angel wards and… bite marks?

Dean had been so focused on Cas, he barely noticed the vampire, licking blood off an angel blade, the metal scraping against her fangs.

Was that… the fucking coroner?

She turned to face Dean with a bloody grin, Cas’s blood smeared across her mouth. The crimson fluid shone in the dim light, reflecting a faint blue glow. The vampire retracted her fangs and began to speak, then stopped short as a bullet buried in her chest. She touched the wound with a grimace, brows pinched, and then she took a breath and pushed the bullet out.

It clattered on the wood floor. 

“Dean Winchester,” Poppy said. “I was wondering how long it would take you to catch on.” She angled the blade down, nudging Cas’s head up with the tip. “My new pet’s been screaming your name since I got him. Every time he blacks out, it’s all he can say.”

Cas stared up at Dean, mouthing “Help me,” over and over. “Please help me.”

He shot her again, the bullet slamming right into her skull. She only sighed and pushed it back out, the bloody wound sealing behind, flesh knitted back together. 

“Dead man’s blood, really? What a cheap trick.” Poppy twirled her blade in her fingers, the edge nicking Cas on the jaw. He flinched. “Luckily, there’s enough grace in this angel’s blood to combat that effect. You know, I’d never have even thought to try angel if those hunters hadn’t come by recently. That’s where I got this little toothpick.” She twirled the angel blade once more. “But unfortunately, their blood is infected. The leviathans have betrayed us.”

“I don’t give a shit about your monologue.” Dean took a step forward, lifting his angel blade, but before he could strike, something sharp slid into the skin on the back of his neck and he blacked out.

Some time later, Dean winced as he lifted his head. An ache stabbed in the side of his neck. He sat up and squinted his eyes open.

Cas. Right there, in plain view. 

No longer locked in a birdcage, now shackled right in front of Dean by a chain linked to the floor and a collar latched around his neck. Awake, but dazed. He laid on the floor, with battered black wings draped over his back. Even scorched, bloody, and slashed, Dean couldn’t pull his eyes off of the wings, awed by their silky beauty. What must they have looked like fully healed and flared out, radiating with power?

“Castiel?” The angel glanced up when he heard Dean’s voice, blinking wide, owlish blue eyes.

“Dean,” he croaked. Cas winced and rubbed his throat. “I heard your prayers,” Cas said, even though he had to strain to cough out each raspy word. “I’m sorry for worrying you. I tried to establish a mental link so you could see me, but I don’t think it worked, so again, I’m--”

“Don’t,” Dean cut him off. He reached out to touch Cas, only for his arm to jerk, locked in place by a chain welded into the wall. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Cas would’ve never ended up in this situation if Dean had just made him leave. He screwed up, and Cas took the fallout. Now that Cas lay curled up in front of him, Dean saw just how damaged he was, covered in inky purple bruises, oozing cuts, deep bite marks, and blistering red burns.   
All because Dean had to let him tag along.

“But you were worried,” said Cas. “I shouldn’t have worried you.” He folded his wings over himself, flat against his body.

Dean moved as close as he could to Cas and reached out till his manacled hands couldn’t reach any farther. Cas shuffled forward, wincing as he pushed himself towards Dean, extending trembling hands. Dean took them in his own and rubbed his thumbs into the backs of Cas’s hands until the shaking subsided. Well, mostly. Cas’s whole body still shook, just less now, out of cold or fear, maybe both. And Dean wanted to pull him close and comfort him, but with his wrists in shackles, he couldn’t reach any further. 

“Cas, you haven’t done anything wrong,” Dean assured him. “It’s not your fault they hurt you…” Dean brushed a finger over one of the gashes on Cas’s wrists. Puncture wounds dotted around the scabby cuts. More bite marks. “Oh hell, what did they do to you?”

Cas shifted, pulling his knees to his chest. “I--they, I…” He swallowed and lowered his head behind a wing. “They drank my blood… Carved wards all over me, stabbed my feet.” Cas opened his wings a few inches to expose the deep wounds stabbed all the way through his feet. Dean’s stomach rolled at the sight. “She clipped a-and burned my wings.” His wings shuddered, mangled feathers flattening back. “Then injected venom into them.” A tear squeezed out of his eye. “It stung, it… it burned. I can still feel it.” On instinct, Dean tried to wipe the tear from Cas’s eye, only for clanking chains to remind him that he couldn’t.

“I have to get you out of here.” Dean looked around the room for anything he could use as a lock pick, but he had nothing but dust to work with. “Son of a bitch,” he growled to himself. “Shoulda brought a spare.” Sam would’ve brought a spare. Probably woulda hid it in his hair, or maybe the good old prison pocket if he was desperate enough.

“You shouldn’t have come after me,” Cas whispered, flinching away from Dean’s scrutinizing glare. 

“When the vampires drank my blood, they consumed some of my grace.”

“Vampires can eat angel grace?” Well that was a problem.

“Yes. They’ve become stronger, more enduring. I fear you’d need an angel blade to decapitate them, and I saw them take yours.”

Maybe Dean could work with that. “Do you know what they did with it?”

Cas gave a small, hesitant nod. “Their leader has it, the scary woman.” He tensed just thinking about her; Dean felt him stiffen up, coiled and tight under Dean’s touch. “She said whichever of her vampires scores the next meal will earn it, but I don’t think they’ll need any new meals…” Cas shivered. “As long as they’re careful with me after all, I won’t die.”

Dean’s vision flashed red with rage. How dare they, how fucking dare they, use his angel like a damn blood slave. 

“You’re angry, aren’t you? That I let them drink my blood and become too strong?” Cas curled in on himself, folding into a ball of bloody feathers. “Now they’ll be nearly impossible to kill, all because I couldn’t stop them from--”

“Cas.” Dean squeezed his hand. “You can’t keep blaming yourself for things that aren’t your fault.”

“But I--”

“No. This is not your fault, you hear me? If you wanna blame someone, you should blame the vampires, or the leviathans for making them hungry enough to want your blood.” Or he should blame Dean for letting this happen. “But do not blame yourself. It’s not your fault for being kidnapped and tortured.”

He blinked, and opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. 

“We’re gonna be fine, okay?” Dean had dealt with worse than vampires, even vampires high on angel grace. I just need to--”

The door opened. 

Dean squinted at the piercing light flooding into the dim room, silhouetting Poppy’s outline in the doorframe, a finger twirling one of her long black curls. The thin chains on her boots clinked as she walked in.

“Cas,” Dean whispered, “remember how I got rid of the angels who attacked you when you woke up from the coma? Think that would work?”

Cas’s gaze drifted to the ceiling as he thought. “It might.”

“Whatever you’re planning,” Poppy purred, “it’s not going to work.” 

Three other vampires filed into the room behind her,fangs extended, and Dean recognized each one. Poppy, of course, and then the town sheriff, the milkshake girl from the hotel (wasn’t she supposed to be stoned?), and his witness, Ronald. Oh shit. He got played. They must’ve planned this whole thing out.

“Don’t think about it too hard, Winchester,” Poppy said when she saw his look of recognition. “You might hurt yourself. I can hear the gears turning in your mind--they’re quite rusty, but then again, your brother does most of the thinking in your family, right?”

“Shut the hell up.”

“I know you’re going to ask, so I’ll just explain it to you.” The vampire approached with her angel blade unsheathed. “My friends and I like to set traps for hunters. That’s how we got those two men I showed you at the morgue. A coroner, a sheriff, witnesses, an eye at the motel, all the people a hunter might work with or talk to during a hunt. Ronald here, or some of my other friends, before their deaths, would do something noteworthy to make the news and attract a hunter. Once the hunter is in town, we find out, and then kill them.” 

She held her blade out. “When we killed a pair of hunters a few days ago, know what else we found on them besides the knife? A book on angel lore.” With her free hand, Poppy patted Cas’s wing. He flinched back and Dean swore at her, pulling against his chains. “It had so much detail, that I learned how to ward and trap my little bird. The wings were just a bonus; there’s a lot of spells that use angel feathers and grace.”

“Listen here you bastard,” said Dean, “I don’t care how good you think you are, or what you think you know. I will rip your ass apart.” And he meant it too, every word. He’d kill these sons of bitches for what they did to Cas. “I’ll kill all of you,” Dean shouted. “Cause that’s what I do, I kill monsters.”

“Look man,” Ronald piped up, “we gotta eat. Animal blood just can’t sustain us for long, and now we can’t eat humans cause their blood is toxic. Haven’t eaten dick thanks to Dick.”

Even though they were monsters, Dean did understand the need to eat. He’d seen vampires make it work, with animal blood, or sometimes willing donors. This, though? This wasn’t just hunger, it was bloodlust. Abduction, torture, none of that was necessary to eat.

“You know,” Dean said as he tried to stand, though the chains kept him from rising to full height, “If you wanted my sympathy, you should have never touched my angel.” He glanced down at Cas and mouthed ‘do it.’ Dean turned to face Poppy with rage burning in his eyes. “I’d tell you to go to Hell, but I’ve been to Hell, and that’s not painful enough for you.”

Poppy tossed her head back and cackled. “Oh, Dean. Brave and tough, but certainly the brawn, not the brain. You have nothing to hold over me, and I have everything to hold over you.” 

She knelt beside Cas, just out of Dean’s reach. The vampire grabbed Cas’s hair and yanked his head up to face her. She held the blade to his face, studying his features. Torturer to torturer, Dean knew that look. She was trying to decide where to cut first.

“Don’t you dare.”

Poppy nudged a finger against Cas’s lip and forced his mouth open. He looked up at Dean with wide, teary eyes. 

“I said don’t.”

She ignored Dean. She cut Cas. Sliding the blade into his mouth, carving red lines along his skin. She carved up the roof of his mouth, blood dripping onto his tongue. Cas gagged and whimpered, squeezing his eye shut. A trickle of blood leaked out of his mouth and dripped out, splattering warm and wet on the ground.

Cas wiped the blood onto a finger and tucked his hand under his wing.

“Hey crazy bat lady,” Dean snarled. She turned to face him, with the audacity to look bored. “You’re wrong. I do have something over you.”

The corners of her redwood eyes crinkled as she flashed him a fanged grin. “Oh? And what would that be?” She scooped some of Cas’s blood on her fingertips and swiped her tongue over her fingers, a red streak on her tongue. 

“A whole lot of experience dealing with graced-up douchebags.”

Castiel took that as a signal. He opened his wing, revealing the angel-banishing ward painted on his side in his own blood. It was risky, of course, Cas could be blasted away too. But at least if he was, he’d be somewhere away from here. 

He activated the sigil.

Cas didn’t vanish. The wards in his chains and carved on his chest glowed pale blue and Cas doubled over, gasping, but he didn’t vanish. 

Neither did the vampires. They weren’t angels, of course they wouldn’t vanish. But the grace inside them lit up. Poppy cried out, clawing at her smoking eyes. Her red irises flashed white and she dropped her angel blade. Ronald dropped to the ground, screaming. In seconds, all four vampires collapsed as the grace inside them blasted out of their bodies.

Dean grabbed the angel blade and stuck it into the lock on his shackles. He picked the lock and broke free, then wasted no time tackling Poppy to the ground, away from Cas. He chopped the blade against her neck, over and over, sending out spurts of her monstrous blood. Dean turned his head so he wouldn’t get any in his mouth, hacking until her head rolled off, spurting from severed arteries and slashed tendons.

With an enraged shout, he grabbed the next vampire and slammed him against the wall, tearing his head off with the angel blade. He screamed as he died.

Good.

He killed the motel vampire next. While she must’ve been faking being stoned, she didn’t seem to have much of a reaction to anything. The pain of having Cas’s grace blasted out of her, and then Dean chopping into her neck, never drew a scream from her, and she barely cried. The vampire died in silence. 

Dean turned to Ronald. “Trying to escape from vampires, huh?” When the vampire tried to stand, Dean kicked his gut to knock him down. “Need to eat, my ass. You’re not hungry, you’re just a pile of shit.”

“Dean,” Castiel groaned. “Help…” 

When did Cas get so pale? 

Dean sliced off Ronald’s head with one clean blow and ran to Cas’s side, slipping in the blood. He checked Cas over. He felt so cold, icy under Dean’s fingers. Cold, weak, and dizzy. Cas opened a wing and Dean sucked in a breath. 

“While you were picking the locks,” Cas coughed out, choking on the blood in his mouth, “she used the second angel blade. Stabbed me…” 

“Why didn’t you say something?” Dean failed to keep his tone calm or even.

“You had to kill the vampires.”

Dean fumbled with the lock on the warded collar until he managed to open it. He pulled the cold metal away and tossed it aside, revealing a ring of dark bruises, cuts, and bite marks around Cas’s neck. Once free, Cas slumped against Dean, shivering and whimpering, hands pressed against his bloody wound. 

“The wards, and the sigil,” he gasped, “I can’t heal.” 

“You’re gonna be okay,” Dean assured him, cupping Cas’s face in his hands. “I’ve got first aid stuff in the car. It’s not far, do you think you can walk?”

Cas tried to stand, only for his feet to give out under him. Cas cried out, and Dean wrapped his arms around Cas to catch him. Right, his feet. The vampires had stabbed Cas’s feet so he couldn’t walk.

“Sorry, forgot about that.”

“S’okay, Dean,” Cas mumbled into Dean’s shoulder. 

He drooped, dizzy and weak, wings sliding down to drag on the floor. Without Dean to hold him up, Cas would have already collapsed. Dean would have to help him out, and if Cas couldn’t walk, then Dean would have to carry him. Carrying him might help warm him, too. Dean bent down and curved an arm around the backs of Cas’s knees. He lifted Cas’s legs up and braced the angel against his chest.

Of all the things he expected to do today, carrying Cas bridal style had not been one of them. 

Dean ran out of the building. He didn’t have time to hide the bodies or burn the evidence or recollect his stolen weapons or salt and burn the remains of the victims. He had to get Cas out. Dean never should have let him come along, but he did, and now he had to deal with the consequences. 

He ran through the halls, trying to find a balance between speed and carefulness; Cas made a quiet whine every time his wings clipped a corner.

Dean kicked open the door and kept running to his car, sputtering encouragements to Cas, telling him that he’d be just fine, he was doing great, that Dean could fix this. Dean had to fix this. He had to.


	9. Beeline

How was he going to fit Cas in the car? If Cas didn’t have his wings out, this wouldn’t be a problem. But he did have wings, so Dean had to set Cas on the ground outside to bandage his wounds. Dean poured water over the wounds to clean them, then stitched up the bloody gash in Cas’s side and wrapped the wound in bandages.

He did the same for Cas’s feet and the cuts on his chest, leaving the smaller cuts for now. He could get some bandaids on them later. Dean, by a miracle, had thought to bring burn cream, which he slathered on the burns beneath Cas’s feathers and what looked like a brand between his wings. Dean couldn’t help but brush his fingers against the feathers, careful to avoid the burnt and broken ones.

Even bloodied and charred, they felt remarkably soft and silky. Dean had to tear his hands away to keep working on Cas’s wounds. 

Once he’d done all he could, that still left the problem of fitting Cas in the car. Dean tried the back seat, but Cas’s wings were too big. Cas whimpered when Dean tried to arrange them to fit, so he pulled Cas back out. 

Dean could stick him in the passenger seat, drape one wing in the back and another over himself in the driver’s seat, but then Dean wouldn’t be able to see to drive. So, he settled for one wing in the back, one in the passenger seat, and Cas, wrapped in a blanket, on Dean’s lap. It took some maneuvering to get Cas’s wings comfortable and legs away from the pedals, but it worked.  
As Dean started the car, he tried not to think about the fact that he had Castiel, nearly naked (without the bees this time), sitting on his lap.

Even though it was Florida, Dean turned on the heater for Cas. He still hadn’t stopped shivering. In fact, without his wings folded over himself, Dean was pretty sure the shivering had gotten worse. He drove with only one hand on the wheel, keeping an arm wrapped around Cas to hold him close. Cas curled up against Dean, going as far as to pull Dean’s jacket open and burrow into it like a clingy puppy. Dean rubbed Cas’s arm, and his hand slid up the angel’s shoulder and nestled into his hair.  
“Um, Dean?” Cas whispered with chattering teeth.

Dean pressed harder on the gas pedal. “Yeah?” He had to get Cas back to the motel room where he could take care of him properly. “You okay?”

“I just wanted to say, ah, thank you. For rescuing me, and for, well, for…” Cas dropped his stare, eyes locked on his own bloody hands. “Thank you for helping me, even after I lied to you, and--” Cas winced. “After I hurt Sam. You’ve been so good to me, you helped me become a better person.”

“If this is a goodbye, stop.” Dean took Cas’s hand and squeezed it. “You’re not dying on me. I’m gonna take care of you.” He increased the car’s speed once more.

“Not a goodbye.” When he looked back at Dean, a red flush crept into his cheeks. “I just have to say, from the moment I pulled you out of Hell, I knew I would never be the same. You taught me to think for myself, you taught me to do the right thing, even if I don’t always know what the right thing is. Dean, you’ve taught me how this human world works, and how human minds work. You’ve taught me how to feel and…” Cas was definitely blushing now. “You taught me how to love.”

What? “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I love you, Dean.”

Cas… loved him? Him? Dean, of all people? Of all the people Cas could have fallen in love with, Dean? No. Cas hadn’t been the same since waking up from the coma, and now he was traumatized and delirious from blood loss. Just emotional from the rescue, that was all.

“You’re more exhausted than I thought,” said Dean. Cas could never love him. Cas pulled Dean out of Hell, pulled his maimed, hungry, blood-lusting soul out of hell. “Don’t worry, you can rest soon. Spend one more night in that motel, then we can go back to Sam. You can bring the kitten, too. She’s been waiting for you. I’ve tried to take care of her, but I think she likes you better.” As she should. 

“I love you,” Cas insisted. “I really do. It’s okay if you don’t feel the same, but I just had to say it. You’re a good man, even if you can’t see it.”

“Good? I tortured souls in Hell. I’ve murdered people. There are monsters I’ve killed that weren’t really monsters.” Sure he’d done some good, but didn’t outweigh all the evil he’d done. Would do. “You don’t deserve to love me. You deserve someone better than me.”

“But I love you as you are. All the layers to who you are as a person, your bravery, your dedication, the way you never give up and always fight for what’s right.”

“Please, Cas, don’t do this to yourself.”

He deserved so much better than Dean. 

Dean pulled into the parking lot at the motel. He just had to get a room on the second floor, didn’t he? Cas said nothing more, just clung to Dean with the same desperation he must’ve had when he saved Dean’s soul. Dean carried him, nearly running, up the stairs to the motel room, with Cas shivering the whole way. Dean unlocked the door, and a yowl greeted him. 

Honey paced back and forth on the bed. Dean laid Cas down beside her and she rushed to his side, purring and rubbing against him. The kitten sniffed Cas’s wings and licked some of the blood off his skin.

As Dean turned to go back to the car to get the medical supplies, Cas grabbed his wrist and tugged him closer.

“Think about what I said? Please?”

“Of course.” Dean couldn’t stop thinking about what Cas told him.

When Dean returned with all the medical supplies, he found Cas covering himself in blankets, with Honey curled up against him. Unfortunately, Dean had to pull the blankets back to clean and dress all of Cas’s wounds, a long process, not because it was complicated, but because there were just so many cuts and burns and punctures. Once Dean finished bandaging the wounds, he had to move on to the wings.

“Can you pull the damaged feathers out?” Cas’s wings unfurled, revealing blood-stained black feathers, many of them cut and burned. “It’ll hurt, but the feathers will regrow eventually.”

Dean nodded. But first, Cas was still freezing, so Dean got some clean clothes for him. He had to cut the back out of an old shirt to fit around the wings, but once he was clothed, Cas looked much warmer. Dean draped blankets over him as well, just to make sure.

Then, he started on the feathers. Cas winced with each one Dean pulled. Some came right out, the shafts practically crumbling to ash. Others required a bit of tugging. Those drew quiet whines and whimpers that Cas tried and failed to hide. Dean offered to stop every few minutes, but Cas insisted he’d feel better with the damaged feathers out.

“I’ve had burns on my wings before. It’ll hurt less with the feathers gone, and besides--” The red blush came back-- “It feels nice, to have you touch my wings.”

Dean felt his own face heat up. He didn’t dare admit he liked touching the feathers, as he ran his fingers through them. The feathers that weren’t damaged, he cleaned with a damp cloth, straightening them out and smoothing the frayed edges. Dean worked out the dust and grime and blood from the wings as he cleaned them and plucked out the broken feathers. Cas’s feathers fluffed up, soft against Dean’s palms. 

Cas leaned into Dean’s touch, soaking up the gentle stroke of fingers on feathers. With Cas so close, tension fading from his body, Dean had to admit something to himself. He had to admit that if Cas wasn’t delirious and did truly love him, Dean would have to reciprocate. 

Even if Cas deserved better than Dean.

Of all the women (and the occasional man, which Dean had never told anyone about, not even Sam) Dean had seduced for cases, had flings with, or even considered a real relationship with, Dean always faltered at commitment. They could not know the real him and still feel love. Cas knew who he was, what he did. Cas witnessed it firsthand. 

Dean couldn’t put that on him. No one who knew the real Dean ever stayed around… or stayed alive. Yet still, he found himself desperate to confess. 

He could just tell Cas. Explain that he’d felt the same for years, even if Dean had never had a word for his feelings, even if he just tried to pass them off as platonic or familial. Cas had pissed him off sometimes, but Dean always forgave him. Always. 

Because Dean loved him.

Lost in the realization, Dean didn’t notice Cas going limp with exhaustion until he sagged against Dean, breathing deep and heavy. 

Dean pulled his hands off Cas’s wings and lowered him down on the bed. He rearranged the wings under a mound of blankets till Cas looked comfortable. Dean got up, but Honey followed him, swiping her claws at his hand. With a sigh, Dean picked the kitten up to go feed her. While he was up, he also took a moment to change into cleaner, more comfortable clothes, wash the blood off his hands, put away his blade, and text Sam to let him know they were both still alive. 

“I have Cas. He’s alive, will call in the morning.” He sent the text and tossed his phone on the pillow, not even bothering to plug it in.

He set the kitten down beside Cas and she nudged under the blankets to curl up against his wing. Dean sat on the other bed and leaned back against the pillows, watching Cas. Even buried in blankets, was he still shivering? Dean leaned forward to get a closer look at him and heard a faint whimper. Not shivering, he realized. Trembling.

Without thinking, Dean got to his feet. No way he was just gonna lay there while Castiel had a nightmare. 

Dean sat on the edge of Cas’s bed. Normally, angels didn’t sleep, only on occasions where too much of their heavenly power had been cut off. The coma wasn’t sleep, was it? Had Cas ever dreamed before? Had he ever had a nightmare before?

He reached out and stroked Cas’s black feathers again. The wing nudged against his palm. Dean took a breath. He’d never done anything… like this. Not with a man, at least, and certainly not with someone he cared so much about. Dean laid down beside Cas. His back curved into Dean. Dean wrapped Cas in his arms and tucked Cas’s head up against his neck, black hair brushing against his chin.

Dean extended an arm behind him and smacked the base of the lamp till, by luck, he turned it off. In the dark, Dean let himself fully wrap around Cas, sheltering him in his arms. Dean’s fingers found the wings once more, and he stroked the blanket-like limbs until Cas settled into a still, silent sleep, his breathing the only sound or movement he made.

Dean found himself reaching for Cas’s hand, entwining their fingers. Something about this just felt right, in a way he couldn’t explain. 

Holding Cas, full-on spooning him, petting his wings, holding his hand, breathing in the scent of his hair, Dean never wanted it to stop. Dean fell asleep, only waking for a brief moment every few hours when Cas started shaking again. 

“I got you,” Dean mumbled in his ear. “You’re safe now.”

Every time, just seconds after waking Dean with shivers and whimpers, Dean’s words and touch quieted him back into deep sleep.

Why did it always take nearly losing Cas for Dean to realize just how much he needed his angel by his side? In those months after he thought Cas died, nothing had felt right, like he went through life wading in tar, pulling him down, smothering him, blacking out his vision. Cas lied to him, worked with Crowley, stole the leviathan souls from Purgatory, released them, broke Sam’s brain, and went on an angel murder spree, But Dean didn’t care, because Cas only wanted to help. He only ever wanted to do the right thing, just like Dean, willing to do questionable things for a good cause. And it had broken Cas. He’d become so overwhelmed with guilt that he took Sam’s suffering onto himself and shattered his mind. He forbade himself to fight, even to defend himself, and ended up tortured and traumatized.

But Dean didn’t care, because he loved Cas, flaws and losses and mistakes and all, the same way that Cas loved Dean.


	10. Bittersweet

Cas woke up warm. He stiffened at the heat at his back, but when the temperature didn’t increase to burn him, he curled into it, soaking it in. After the previous night, where he’d felt so unbelievably cold, he needed the warmth.

He didn’t bother to place its source until he felt something brush against his feathers. A slow, careful stroke, avoiding the cuts and burns as much as possible. An angel’s wings should not be touched by anyone other than family. He turned to look behind him and-- oh. Dean was the one to touch his wings. So it was okay then.

Only family should touch his wings, and who was more of a family to Cas than the Winchesters?  
Not wanting to wake Dean, Cas laid there for a while. How long had it been since he last slept? Cas couldn’t really count the coma, since it was less sleep, more Cas trapped in his own subconscious, his mind constructing bloody, terrifying images and sounds, replicating Sam’s experiences in Hell, full of burning and chains and blades sliding under his skin. He didn’ regret taking Sam’s hallucinations though, no matter how awful it had been.

There had been moments last night where Cas thought he’d somehow ended up back in that mental hellscape, only this time, vampires joined him in the Cage.

Yet every time, before the phantoms of his torture could harm him, an odd feeling of warmth settled over him, familiar enough and gentle enough to calm him down until the dream disintegrated around him. 

Now that Cas had woken, he realized that familiar presence had been Dean.

Cas’s feathers fluffed up under Dean’s touch. Even in sleep, he was careful with Cas, never letting himself touch the wounds, only working his fingers through Cas’s feathers. Cas frowned at the state of his wings, flayed and ragged, too many feathers missing, and the remaining feathers had been dirtied by his own blood. Dean didn’t seem to mind, at least, and the methodical movement of his hands almost reminded Cas of having his feathers preened, back when his family all took care of each other.

In fact, Dean’s touch was actually a little too careful and methodical for someone who happened to be asleep.

“Dean?” Cas whispered, nearly silent, voice still scratching his throat, but a bit less now.

“You okay?” Dean asked, and his breath brushed against Cas’s ear.

He tried not to shiver.

“Sorry if I woke you, but I didn’t think you were asleep.” Unless he’d screwed up. Dean needed rest, especially after taking out an entire nest of vampires while worrying about Cas. “I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

“No, I’ve been up,” he admitted, and some of the tension melted out of Cas. “I didn’t wanna wake you either. No rush, right?”

“Right.”

So they laid there for some time longer, neither going back to sleep, but they didn’t get up, either. Cas nestled closer to Dean, and there he noticed that Honey had curled up, purring, under his wings. Adhering to the unspoken law that you do not wake up a sleeping animal, Cas kept his wings still, only letting his feathers move as they rustled and flared up under Dean’s hands, broken and damaged, but still soft between Dean’s fingers.

Dean’s phone buzzed, and only then did he sit up with a sigh. Cas fought back an urge to call him back, to ask him to keep petting Cas’s wings and keep holding him.

“Hey, Sam,” Dean yawned into the phone. “Yep, we’re okay. It was vampires, they had this whole system of catching hunters, but I took care of them. Yeah, I got Cas, he’s here too.” Dean went silent for a second to let Sam speak, then his eyes darkened. “They hurt him pretty bad, but I’ve got him now.” Dean reached out to Cas and squeezed his shoulder. “I got him.”

Dean tapped the screen and held his phone out. “Cas, Sam said he wants to talk to you. Go on Sam, you’re on speaker.”

“You okay, Cas?” Sam’s voice crackled from the speaker.

“I’ve been better, but Dean found me, so I’ll be okay. He’s already bandaged my wounds.”

“Wounds? I thought your grace was supposed to heal you?”

Cas glanced down at his chest. Dean might’ve stitched and bandaged the wards cut into his ribs, but he still felt their effects. “I suppose you’ll want to know what happened to me. Well, the vampires found a book on angel lore, and an angel blade. With that, they learned how to cut warding into me. My grace is present, but I can’t access it. And, um, there’s another thing.” Dean gave him a reassuring pat. “My wings are visible. And damaged. It’ll take time before I can grow new feathers, so no teleporting.”

Sam didn’t say anything at first. “You sure you’re okay?”

Cas shrugged, even though Sam wouldn’t be able to see over the phone. “I’m better than I was, and Dean’s with me, and Honey too. She’s a kitten I found. Vampires drinking my blood was quite scary, but I can heal now.”

“They drank your blood?” Sam sputtered, voice raised. “Damn, Cas… If you’re okay to travel, why don’t you guys come back now? I found a lead on Dick.”

“And the bone?” Dean asked.

“I got it from a dead nun, she seemed righteous enough. About eighty years of humble nunly goodness. I mixed all the blood on it, so it’s ready to go. We just need to get to SucroCorp and stab it into Dick Roman.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Dean. “We’ll leave in a minute, then we can bone Dick.”

Sam exhaled a loud, dramatic sigh. “See you soon.”

“See you.”

Dean hung up the call, then eased off the bed. “I need a shower, can you handle the kitten on your own?” He got the rag and milk bottle for Cas and set them on the edge of the bed.

“I’ve got Honey,” Cas said. 

He sat up and rubbed Honey’s ears with his thumb. As much as he’d rather let her sleep, she needed to eat. Honey yawned and stretched, sticking her tail up like a bumper car. The yellow kitten climbed over Cas’s legs and purred, batting him with her paws until he picked her up to feed her.  
By the time Dean came out of the shower, changed into new clothes, Cas had finished. He sat down next to Cas and laid the first aid kit between them.

“I’m gonna check your wounds and change the bandages. Might sting a bit.”

Cas pulled his shirt off to give Dean access to the bandages. He winced as the fabric passed over his wings. Cas pretended not to notice Dean’s faintly flushed face or the way he glanced down at the mattress. 

Dean apologized every time Cas winced or flinched. The fresh, tender wounds might’ve stopped bleeding, but that didn’t mean they’d stopped hurting. Dean rubbed something into the wounds, and it stung a bit, Cas drawing in a hiss through his teeth. Dean apologized about eight more times and mumbled something about antibiotics. Dean moved onto the wings and slathered a soothingly cool between the feathers, easing the pain flaring and pulsing from the burns. Cas couldn’t keep himself from leaning his wings into Dean’s palms; the touch ended far quicker than he wanted it to. Then Dean moved on to his feet. Castiel looked away from the wounds as Dean unwrapped the bandages, rubbed some more of that stinging antibiotic over the wounds. Cas squeezed his eyes shut and stifled a high-pitched whine. 

“You’re okay, I’m almost done.” Dean unrolled some clean bandages and bound the wounds. “Okay, just finished. But you can’t try walking yet, okay?” Dean shifted to sit next to Cas and wrap an arm around him. “This is gonna be a bit of a process, but we can go through it together. Me and Sammy, we’ll kill Dick Roman, and then I won’t have any distractions.”

“Thank you, Dean.” He couldn’t do this without Dean, couldn’t even imagine it.

“Cas…” Dean’s voice cut out, rough and scratchy. He cleared his throat. “Listen, I know I haven’t always been there for you, especially lately. You don’t need me yelling at you, you need help. So, I’m sorry, and I’m gonna do whatever I can to change that.”

Cas leaned against him, resting his head on Dean’s shoulder. “I understand why you were angry, you have every right to be.”

“You only ever wanted to help, even if I didn’t agree with your methods.”

“Sam nearly died because of me.”

“But he’s still alive because of you, too.”

“I suppose…” Cas scratched the back of his neck, wincing as his fingers brushed against the ring of bruises from the collar. 

Dean cupped Cas’s chin and turned his head to look up. “Look at me. You know I’m not good at stuff like this, but I have to say… I thought about what you said. Yesterday, I mean.” Dean swallowed. “And part of me still wonders if you meant what you said or if you were just delirious, but I can’t put it off any longer.” 

Castiel’s tongue felt dry and heavy in his mouth, his throat closed up, and he couldn’t find the words to tell Dean that he had meant everything. His pulse fluttered and his feathers flattened, wings almost appearing to shrink.

“I love you.”

The words rang in his ears, shot right into his heart. Cas didn’t bother to stop the tears building up in his eyes, he just stared at Dean in open-mouthed shock.

“So did you mean it, then?” Dean hesitated when he spoke, as if he were afraid of the answer. “I know you were in a lot of pain, and you lost too much blood for comfort, so if you said something you didn’t really mean, I--” Dean took a breath. “Did you mean it, really mean it? Do you love me?”  
Cas took his hand. “I do,” he said. Cas stared into Dean’s eyes, vision blurry, heart racing. “Ever since I gripped you tight and raised you from perdition, I have loved you.”

A relieved grin broke over Dean’s face.

“Can I show you, Cas, show you just how I feel about you?”

“Please.”

Cas leaned in closer, his feathers fluffing up fuller than they’d ever been. Dean took Cas’s face in his hands, thumbing away his hot tears. Their lips parted and they came together in a kiss. Cas let himself free-fall, eyes closed, into the feeling of Dean’s mouth against his, somehow soft and hungry at the same time, like he could barely restrain himself. Cas’s hands found their way to Dean’s hair and his wings folded around them both, cocooning them in black feathers. Dean pulled Cas into his lap, right up against his body, cleaving away the space between them. 

Dean must have felt the wetness of Cas’s tears and tasted the blood in his mouth, but he didn’t show it, didn’t let go or pull back. He clung to Cas with the same strength Cas had once used to cling to Dean’s soul in Hell.

They only parted to breathe, gasping in each other’s arms. Dean nudged Cas’s chin up with his thumb and pressed his lips to his cheeks, his forehead, his nose, the cuts under his eye, peppering his face with kisses, and Cas responded with a low noise in his throat not unlike a cat’s purr or the crooning of a dove.

“Wow,” Dean exhaled as he pulled away, “we should’ve been doing that this whole time.”

“We can start kissing often, if you’d like.” When had Cas’s voice gotten so gravelly? “Make up for some of the times we could’ve, but didn’t.” All of the times Cas found himself staring a little too much for a little too long, wishing for nothing more than to close the gap between them.

“I’d love that.”

So they did. They kissed on repeat for the rest of that day, even as Dean packed up the car to drive them home. Since Cas had some control of his wings now, he could spread one out in the back and drape the other over himself, the longest feathers laying over Dean’s legs like a blanket. They drove with the windows down and music on, and every time they stopped, one of them would lean over to kiss the other. This lasted until they finally arrived back at Rufus’s old cabin, where Sam waited for them outside.

Sam stared in open shock at Cas’s wings. “Woah, your wings, they’re massive. The shadows don’t do them justice.”

“Oh, um, thanks.”

Cas hadn’t even unfurled them all the way. He kept them folded so they wouldn’t drag on the ground when Dean carried him out of the car, Honey padding after them. She twined around Dean’s legs and he nearly tripped over her. Cas flatted his wings in response, messing up Dean’s hair with a feathered smack to the head.

“Dammit cat--or Cas--or whichever one of you I’m damning.”

“You got your hands full there, Dean?” Sam chuckled. Dean glared and Sam just rolled his eyes. 

“Get inside, let me know when you’re ready to kill some leviathans.”

Dean carried Cas into the cabin and laid him on a mattress Sam must’ve set up. Cas sank into the fabric with a sigh, but did not let go of Dean, gripping his hand even as Honey climbed onto the mattress, using Cas and Dean’s arms as a ladder, scratching them up with her claws.

“You comfortable?” Dean asked and leaned down to kiss him.

“Yes, I--” he broke off, aware for the first time that Sam stood in the doorway, watching them. Cas blushed.

Sam grinned. “I knew it.”

“What?” Dean sputtered. “You knew? Even I didn’t know.”

Sam shrugged. “That’s because you never take the time to think about your feelings, dumbass. Bobby and I made a bet actually, if you would confess your love for Cas before you’re forty. Looks like Bobby won.”

Something about that felt oddly comforting, knowing that not only did Sam and Bobby support Dean and Cas’s new relationship, they had actually been expecting it. Although, unfortunately communication was not a primary skill amongst the Winchesters. If Cas knew crisis would open up this conversation, he would’ve gotten himself kidnapped years ago.

They spent the rest of the day filling each other in, Dean explaining in graphic detail how he’d killed the vampires, but thankfully leaving out most of the details around Cas’s injuries. Sam demanded to know where he’d gotten a kitten, so Cas told him about farm-hopping in various countries to get ingredients to make food for hangry Dean, and there he’d found Honey, tiny and hungry and in need of care, so he brought her back, somehow convinced Dean that they needed an extra species in Team Free Will, and now he had a kitten.

“Dean agreed to that?”

Cas shrugged. “He was a bit too preoccupied with the pie to be upset.”

“Well I was hungry,” Dean said, “you try not eating any good food for days and then all of the sudden your angel boyfriend makes you breakfast and a pie.”

They all broke into laughter, and that reminded Sam to make dinner, so he and Dean ate while Cas fed Honey. Later on, Dean rebandaged Cas’s wounds under Sam’s supervision, and Cas once more mound himself unable to resist Dean’s fingers in his feathers. They went to bed soon after, and Dean laid beside Cas, wrapping his arms around him and holding him close, petting his wings, while they slept.

“We’ll be back soon,” Dean promised. “Once Dick is dead, no distractions.”

But he wasn’t back soon. He didn’t come back at all, actually. Sam stumbled home in the middle of the night, dazed with shock, to find Castiel waiting for him, with his kitten on his lap. Cas’s brow furrowed in concern.

“Sam… where’s Dean?”

Sam blinked back tears. “I don’t know, Cas… I don’t know.”


End file.
